All the Boeing fans here can now rejoice.
The traitorous Northrop Grumman Corp, located in evil Alabama(which, being evil, doesn't deserve jobs anyway), which dared to partner with a despicable evil foreign company called EADS to bid for a defense contract, finally pulled out of the bid.
It was a long and hard effort, and the RFP had to be rigged carefully in such a way that even the stupidest child would understand that only Boeing (the good, upstanding, US company) would be allowed to win it before Northrop Grumman finally gave in to reality.
A choice quote
A year ago, Obama said these kinds of no-bid contracts aren't a good deal for the taxpayer and vowed to change the way government agencies do business. With the support of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., his campaign rival in 2008, Obama ordered his senior advisers to come up with ways to encourage competition.
"The days of giving defense contractors a blank check are over," Obama declared.
Well, yeah. Sort of.
Others see it differently:
Boeing's supporters shrugged off concerns that Northrop's decision would mean higher program costs because Boeing would still have to meet requirements laid out by the Pentagon. Ultimately, they said it was good news that some of the work wouldn't go overseas to EADS.
"This will be an American company with American workers," said Democratic Rep. Norm Dicks of Washington state, where Boeing plans to build its tankers.
(After that statement he stopped waving 4 American flags and started to sing 10 verses of the national anthem. Or something like that).
So, yes! Fuck fairness! All American patriots will now gladly pay higher taxes for the most expensive no-bid purchase in US history (NYT):
The contract could be extended for decades and eventually cost $100 billion for 400 to 500 planes.
100 Billion. Wow. You gotta love that - heck, two thirds of the world's states have a GDP smaller than that.
But we know that the evil foreigners have been rightly beaten to the curb for their brazen attempt to actually take the open bidding conditions at face value and submit a bid. (What were they thinking, really?)
In the meantime, US taxpayers have nothing to fear. Notes the Wall Street Journa(via tradesignal):
Pentagon officials said they had a contingency plan to work with a single bidder. Michael Donley, secretary of the Air Force, said there were "military and legal channels that would protect the taxpayer interest."
That is bureaucrat speak for "Yes, we know they have us by the balls now, but they promised us really nicely not to squeeze too hard". Good luck with that, it worked really well the first time!
In completely unrelated news, the US defense industry is going strong and our European vassal states partners will of course continue to give the US full access to their public bidding processes as law and international treaties require.