The Air Force's buddies are pushing fighter jets as job-creators. The Army is reminding Congressmen just how many House districts will be involved in cranking out its new, networked tanks. Ship- and sub-builders aren't about to let the Navy get nudged away from the economic stimulus trough. General Dynamics
Electric Boat president John Casey, for one, is pushing his Virginia-class submarines as employment bonanzas.
Casey "argued that an increased pace in sub building would be an efficient creator of jobs. And he said slowing the pace would raise the cost per vessel, because purchasing efficiencies come from a faster pace of construction," according to MSNBC.com. "About 5,000 of
Electric Boat employees work directly on the *Virginia *program on any given day, but the multiplier effect of those jobs is considerable."
"We can’t afford to be complacent," he said at a meeting of sub contractors last week. "We cannot take for granted that Congress will continue to support the program."
Last month, President Obama pledged to "reform our defense budget so that we’re not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don’t use." Some liberal think tanks have argued that the Virginia subs are just such a system. Not surprisingly, Casey disagrees, strongly. "'Cold War' and
*Virginia *should never be used in the same sentence," he tells MSNBC.com. "This platform was designed after the Cold War ended, specifically to deal with the threats we face as a nation today."
[Photo: DoD]
