| WASHINGTON
- December 20 - A broad range of citizen
organizations and leaders, spanning the political spectrum, has
joined together to express outrage over a provision in the Defense
Appropriations bill that would have the Air Force lease Boeing 767s
at a price dramatically higher than the cost of direct purchase.
In a letter to senators, the groups urged senators "to take to
the floor to speak and vote against this specific siphoning of
taxpayer money to the Boeing company."
Signers of the letter included Ralph Nader, Grover Norquist, the
Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, the Congressional
Accountability Project, the National Taxpayers Union, the Project
on Government Oversight, Public Citizen and Taxpayers for Common
Sense.
Under the Boeing lease provision, the Air Force will lease 100
Boeing 767s for use as tankers, at a pricetag of $20 million per
plane per year, over a 10-year period. This $20 billion expenditure
is far higher than the cost of direct purchase. The government will
accrue extra expenses because it will be obligated not only to
convert the commercial aircraft to military configurations; when
the 10-year lease is over, it will be required to convert them back
to commercial format, at an estimated cost of $30 million apiece.
The cost of the lease plan may be as much as five times higher than
an outright purchase would be. A last-minute amendment would also
have the Air Force lease four 737s to shuttle Defense Department
officials and potentially congressional leaders.
"There is no conceivable rationale for such a waste of taxpayer
resources," the groups said in their letter. "If some in Congress
believe Boeing needs to be subsidized, then they should propose
direct subsidies to the company, and let Congress fully debate and
vote on the issue before the American people, following
comprehensive public hearings on the proposal.
"This is not a partisan issue. It is a basic test of whether
Congress views itself as fundamentally accountable to the public
interest, both procedurally and substantively.
"There will obviously be a Defense Appropriations bill passed
for the coming fiscal year. But it must not be one that includes
such a gross exhibition of corporate welfare. We urge you to speak
and vote against the bill; and to force consideration of a revised
bill, stripped of this grotesquery."
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