Freedom Line Blog

Economists projected that the U.S. economy would add 160,000 new jobs last month.  Instead, the Labor Department announced today that we only added 69,000.

Additionally, the unemployment rate increased to 8.2% in May from 8.1% in April.  That makes 40 consecutive months above 8%, a new record.  Keep in mind that the Obama Administration claimed we wouldn’t reach 8% in the first place if his failed “stimulus” spending bill passed back in early 2009.

This announcement also arrives one day after the Commerce Department announced that the American economy grew only 1.9% in the first quarter of 2012, short of its initial 2.2% estimate.

More broadly, the economy must add 200,000 jobs each month just to keep pace with population growth and materially reduce the unemployment rate, and today’s report follows a disappointing 115,000 number in April.  The Obama Administration claims that the last recession was “the worst since the Great Depression,” but that’s false.  The early-1980s recession was substantially worse – higher unemployment, higher inflation and higher interest rates.  President Reagan’s policy of lower taxes and less regulation, however, rapidly reduced unemployment from 10.4% to 6.7% in the three years following the effective date of his tax cuts in January 1983.  In contrast, Obama’s policies of higher spending, higher deficits, higher taxes and more regulation have caused the worst cyclical recovery since the Great Depression.

At this moment in Dallas, Texas, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade negotiations have resumed, with important implications for intellectual property (IP).

According to the U.S. Commerce Department, 75 domestic industries it identifies as “IP-intensive” account for 40 million jobs, approximately 28% of our total employment.  Industries reliant upon IP also account for $5 trillion – some 35% – of total American gross domestic product (GDP), 61% of U.S. merchandise exports and pay wages 42% higher than non-IP employers.

It is therefore critical that TPP negotiators establish a solid foundation for IP protection as they move toward finalization.

The TPP currently consists of eight Pacific trading partners in addition to the U.S. – Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei, Chile and Peru.  In 2010 alone, America exported $89 billion in goods to those nations, making the TPP one of our largest collective export markets.  The express goal of the TPP charter is “to establish a comprehensive, next-generation regional agreement that liberalizes trade and investment and addresses new and traditional trade issues and 21st-century challenges.”  And with other Pacific region nations Japan, Canada and Mexico expressing interest in joining the TPP, the agreement currently under negotiation can set the foundation for future trade practices across the Pacific realm.

To its credit, the U.S. stands as a worldwide leader in demanding strong IP standards in agreements such as this, as reflected by domestic laws and international accords such as the one completed just last year with Korea.  Similarly, with pressure on to finalize TPP negotiations, we must ensure strong IP protections in the final agreement.  Doing so will prove beneficial in terms of protecting American jobs against theft and counterfeit, protecting American consumers against potentially dangerous products, reducing the threat to American creativity and innovation posed by copyright infringement, promoting future innovation, protecting American competitiveness against those who seek to steal our ideas and creations and setting clear rules for worldwide commerce.

If successful, we can set a sound foundation of IP protection, which will prove critical for American innovation, jobs, exports and continued prosperity in an increasingly Pacific-dominated 21^st century.

Join CFIF Corporate Counsel and Senior Vice President Renee Giachino today from 4:00 p.m. CDT to 6:00 p.m. CDT (that’s 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. EDT) on Northwest Florida’s 1330 AM WEBY, as she hosts her radio show, “Your Turn: Meeting Nonsense with Commonsense.”  Today’s guest lineup includes:

4:00 (CDT)/5:00 pm (EDT):  Arthur Brooks, American Enterprise Institute President – “The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise”;

4:30 (CDT)/5:30 pm (EDT):  Professor John Lott, Economist – Stand Your Ground Laws;

5:00 (CDT)/6:00 pm (EDT):  Clint Bolick, Hoover Institution Research Fellow and Director of the Goldwater Institute Center for Constitutional Litigation – “Two-Fer: Electing a President and a Supreme Court”;  and

5:30 (CDT)/6:30 pm (EDT):  Rich Noyes, Media Research Center’s Research Director and a senior editor at NewsBusters.org – Media Bias.

Listen live on the Internet here.   Call in to share your comments or ask questions of today’s guests at (850) 623-1330.

Big Labor is at it again.  This time in the airline industry.

As you’ve probably heard, US Airways has proposed a merger with American Airlines, and the latter’s labor unions have eagerly pursued contract agreements with their potential new employer.  A benevolent effort meant to expedite the process?  Hardly.  Rather, it is a hasty, thinly-veiled act of desperation.  Instead of allowing American’s bankruptcy restructuring process to run its natural course, and a stronger airline to emerge, American’s unions have acted in a manner that can only serve to muddle and complicate the situation.

Here’s the critical fact to keep in mind: American Airlines reached its current predicament due primarily to its onerous labor costs.  Its industry-high labor costs, representing fully 28% of its revenue, led to bankruptcy.  Now, however, its unions seek to repeat that futile process by pursuing similar deals with US Airways.  It defies history and economic reality to believe that a new merger under similar conditions would create such a magical synergy allowing the new contracts to be sustained for a lasting amount of time.

On top of that, successfully integrating two separate workforces into one can be a logistical nightmare.  After all, US Airways itself has yet to fully integrate the new employees it acquired with its 2005 takeover of America West Airlines.  Pilots from both carriers have engaged in an ongoing dispute over seniority and pay scales, and to this day US Airways and America West essentially operate as two separate entities, with US Airways pilots only flying US Airways planes and vice-versa.  How could repeating that scenario be expected to create sudden synergies or cost savings?  What evidence is there that this union-proposed takeover might play out differently?

Make no mistake – we at CFIF don’t maintain any inherent antipathy toward mergers.  We do, however, recognize the pitfalls and dangers of mergers suspiciously pursued and negotiated by union bosses.  The unfortunate reality is that this appears to be yet another example of Big Labor pursuing its own interests at the expense of the rank-and-file employees it claims to represent.

By way of historical background, the airline industry has changed rapidly over the years due to rising fuel costs and other market forces.  Countless carriers have restructured union contracts or merged with competitors to reduce costs and remain in the market.

American Airlines stands as the lone exception.

American has never merged with another airline, and until this year it had never filed for bankruptcy.  As a result, its unionized employees have enjoyed arguably the best salaries and benefits packages in the industry.  And in an ironic bit of history, US Airways has itself gone through several bankruptcies over the years, and even frozen or terminated pensions and many of the types of benefits they’re apparently ceding to American’s labor unions in hopes of a quick deal.

We live in economically uncertain times, in which the cushy union contracts of old have become outdated and fiscally unsustainable.  The fact that American, once the nation’s model airline, is bankrupt is itself evidence of how challenging it has become to operate in the industry.  Big Labor knows this well.  After all, it represents a significant percentage of the industry workforce.  Sadly, however, it refuses to learn the straightforward lessons of recent history, and instead continues to demand unreasonable contracts that will put the longevity and viability of airlines at risk.  In so doing, shortsighted union leaders place their own survival above that of their members.  They concern themselves primarily with replenishing their coffers and pursuing political victories financed by union dues.

That imprudent approach may benefit the union leadership in the near term.  But in the end, it proves to the detriment of average unionized American Airlines employees, as well as customers due to the reduced long-term viability of a bloated, union-controlled airline.  The alternative is to allow American the opportunity to right the ship and carve out a new, mutually-beneficial agreement with its employees.  Concessions will need to be made by both management and labor, and it will necessary for American Airlines’ bankruptcy proceedings to run its course.

The Big Labor alternative to repeat the unsustainable cycle will merely prolong the misery at the expense of employees and consumers.

For a record 39th consecutive month, unemployment has exceeded the 8% level that the Obama Administration said we’d never reach in the first place under his government spending “stimulus.”

Compounding that misery, the nation added only 115,000 jobs last month according to this morning’s monthly Labor Department report.  That’s far fewer than the consensus prediction of 163,000 new jobs, which itself is far below the 200,000 needed each month to keep pace with population growth and substantively reduce the unemployment rate.  The Obama Administration claims that the last recession was “the worst since the Great Depression,” but that’s false.  The early-1980s recession conquered by Ronald Reagan’s economic policies was substantially worse – higher unemployment, higher inflation and higher interest rates.  Under Reagan, however, unemployment plummeted from 10.4% to 6.7% in the three years following the effective date of his tax cuts in January 1983.  Obama, in contrast, didn’t face “the worst recession since the Great Depression,” but his agenda of massive spending, regulation and deficits has given us the worst recovery since the Great Depression.

Join CFIF Corporate Counsel and Senior Vice President Renee Giachino today from 4:00 p.m. CDT to 6:00 p.m. CDT (that’s 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. EDT) on Northwest Florida’s 1330 AM WEBY, as she hosts her radio show, “Your Turn: Meeting Nonsense with Commonsense.”  Today’s guest lineup includes:

4:00 (CDT)/5:00 pm (EDT):  Shona Holmes, Patients’ Rights Advocate:  ObamaCare;

4:30 (CDT)/5:30 pm (EDT):  John Yoo, Professor of Law at the University of California’s Boalt Hall Law School:  “Taming Globalization: International Law, the U.S. Constitution and the New World Order”;

5:00 (CDT)/6:00 pm (EDT):  Matt Mayer, Visiting Fellow at the Heritage Foundation:  Arizona’s Immigration Law;  and

5:30 (CDT)/6:30 pm (EDT):  Pete Sepp, Executive Vice President at the National Taxpayers Union (NTU):  Annual Rating of Congress.

Listen live on the Internet here.   Call in to share your comments or ask questions of today’s guests at (850) 623-1330.

CFIF has filed an official comment with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), opposing its attempt to impose a Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) that constitutes a destructive form of anti-trade protectionism by arbitrarily discriminating against palm oil-based biofuel on the basis of dubious scientific analysis.

While CFIF opposes federal RFS mandates generally, the EPA’s existing RFS palm oil decision amounts to trade protectionism with potentially toxic effects that the Agency must deliberate.  Not only does that decision violate America’s free trade commitments with the World Trade Organization (WTO), it will result in higher energy costs and fewer choices for American consumers.  “The policy deprives American energy consumers of a fuller range of choices in the energy market,” our comment observes, “and it privileges certain well-connected domestic producer groups, ultimately raising costs and limiting choices for all Americans.”  CFIF concludes, “It is also a hostile affront to longstanding American allies who have invested in plantation agriculture as a means of developing export markets to generate critical economic growth, thereby undermining U.S. support for greater global prosperity and poverty abatement. ”

Rather than position itself as some sort of gatekeeper of alternative energy sources, the EPA should instead institute policies that permit entrepreneurial market forces to respond to consumer demands and determine the ultimate contours and direction of the energy sector.  During a period of rising energy costs, this encroachment upon the individual freedoms of citizens and private businesses is unjustifiable and should be withdrawn.

Last month, we explained why overturning ObamaCare’s individual mandate would not amount to “judicial activism” as liberals hypocritically contend.  Quoting Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist Number 78, we noted that, “The courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority.”   For the Supreme Court to refrain from overturning the individual mandate due to timidity or political calculation would effectively erase the interstate commerce clause and its limiting principle out of the text of the Constitution, an act of supreme judicial arrogance and activism.

Writing in today’s Wall Street Journal, former Reagan and George H. W. Bush attorneys David Rivkin, Jr. and Lee Casey highlight another manner in which upholding, rather than overturning, ObamaCare’s individual mandate would constitute judicial activism.  Namely, because upholding it would eliminate any limiting commerce clause principle, courts would suddenly possess even greater future power to decide on an arbitrary case-by-case basis which federal laws satisfied their undefined discretion:

There is virtually no economically unrealistic regulation – that forces companies to produce goods nobody wants to buy, or sets artificial prices – that could not be salvaged at least in the short run by an offsetting purchase mandate of some kind…  Although the policy merits of various mandates could honestly be debated, there is simply no neutral, judicially enforceable basis on which courts can determine which prepayment mandates Congress can impose as a means of regulating future transactions and which it cannot.  In fact, if the courts were to scrutinize such mandates, as ObamaCare defenders suggest, striking down those they considered to be too onerous or preposterous (such as a “broccoli mandate”) the judges truly would be engaged in illegitimate judicial activism.”

Thus would Potter Stewart’s infamous “I know it when I see it” become the rule in every instance of potential Congressional overreach, and a tool for unrestricted future judicial activism.

Join CFIF Corporate Counsel and Senior Vice President Renee Giachino today from 4:00 p.m. CDT to 6:00 p.m. CDT (that’s 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. EDT) on Northwest Florida’s 1330 AM WEBY, as she hosts her radio show, “Your Turn: Meeting Nonsense with Commonsense.”  Today’s guest lineup includes:

4:00 (CDT)/5:00 pm (EDT):  Shannon Goessling, Executive Director of the Southeastern Legal Foundation:  Global Warming — Lawsuits and Science;

4:30 (CDT)/5:30 pm (EDT):  Todd Young, President & CEO of the Center for America:  Jobs, Hope and Brighter Future;

5:00 (CDT)/6:00 pm (EDT):  Angela Logomasini, Senior Fellow, Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI):  Chemical Laws and Plastic Bans;  and

5:30 (CDT)/6:30 pm (EDT):  Lyss Stern, Founder and CEO of Diva Moms:  Bullying  (http://Divamoms.com).

Listen live on the Internet here.   Call in to share your comments or ask questions of today’s guests at (850) 623-1330.

Just months ago, T-Mobile became another unjustified casualty of the arbitrary and capricious Federal Communications Commission (FCC).  It was bad enough that the FCC curiously opposed T-Mobile’s proposed merger with AT&T, which would have upgraded wireless service for tens of millions of American consumers and created thousands of new jobs.  Compounding that injustice, however, the FCC committed the unprecedented transgression of releasing a confidential staff report that inaccurately maligned the proposed merger’s justifications.

Sadly, T-Mobile now seeks to employ that same FCC as a bureaucratic bludgeon to cripple a market competitor, by asking it to block a private spectrum purchase by Verizon Wireless.   Whereas T-Mobile announced a few months ago that, “The U.S. wireless industry will remain fiercely competitive”  by allowing acquisition of 50 MHz of T-Mobile’s spectrum as part of the AT&T deal, it now claims that Verizon’s proposed acquisition of 20 MHz of unused spectrum will somehow “unduly tip the scales” in Verizon’s favor.  Moreover, T-Mobile itself seeks to acquire 20 MHz of spectrum, which it claims is in the public interest and “seeks only to assign spectrum licenses and no other assets.”

CFIF supported T-Mobile’s right to enter into a bargained-for exchange between private parties during its proposed merger with AT&T, which the FCC and Obama Justice Department improperly blocked.  But by the same token, it should not turn around and attempt to interfere with other parties’ market transactions.  T-Mobile is a subsidiary of Deutsche Telecom, the world’s fourth-largest telecommunications company, which itself is partly owned by the German government.  So it’s not exactly David fighting Goliath, unable to contend in the marketplace without exploiting the FCC as some sort of protective big brother.

Verizon Wireless merely seeks to purchase unused spectrum, which will bring desperately-needed wireless service improvements for U.S. consumers.  That’s none of T-Mobile’s business, and the FCC is not some sort of instrument to be used as a competitive weapon.

Ironically, the Obama Administration projected when he entered office that unemployment wouldn’t exceed 8% after his massive spending “stimulus.”  Instead, the rate has exceeded 8% for 38 consecutive months, the most since the federal government began keeping records.  Over three long years.  Of course, Obama can at least claim something on which he has proved reliable.

Today, the Labor Department announced that only 120,000 new jobs were created last month, well below expectations of over 200,000.  That number is insufficient to reduce unemployment by even a single percentage point over a year, and the only reason the rate fell from 8.3% in February to a still-miserable 8.2% in March was that more people gave up and abandoned the workforce altogether.  Under Obama, we have witnessed record spending, record deficits, record regulation and record hostility toward private employers.  So what does he have to show for that?  As detailed this week by The Wall Street Journal, the worst economic recovery in history.  Those straightforward facts speak for themselves.

When the United States Supreme Court affirmed the Second Amendment’s individual right to keep and bear arms and overturned Washington, D.C.’s prohibition, Mayor Adrian Fenty predicted, “More handguns in the District of Columbia will only lead to more handgun violence.”  But that’s not what happened, which comes as no surprise to anyone paying attention to decades of real-world data.  In the famous words of Dr. John Lott, “More Guns, Less Crime.”

Today, The Wall Street Journal noted that the D.C. saw its fewest number of murders since 1963.  What’s more, the decline occurred even as its police force has declined:  “Washington, D.C., last year recorded 108 murders, its fewest since 1963, despite 230 fewer uniformed officers than in 2009.”  More stubborn facts to debunk strangely persistent anti-gun hysteria.

Six years ago today, Duke University suspended its lacrosse team following allegations of rape by stripper Crystal Mangum that were subsequently disproven.  As noted by the History Channel’s recitation, “The case raised issues of class and race because the accuser was a poor, black, single mother from the Durham area and the three lacrosse players were out-of-staters from affluent backgrounds.”  Approximately one year later, the case was dropped due to emerging evidence, and Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong was not only disbarred but also convicted of criminal contempt for lying to a judge.

Something to keep in mind as some undertake a similar emotionalized rush to judgment in another racially-charged case today.

With the unemployment rate holding steady above 8% for over three long years now, it’s obvious that the United States must pursue policies that spur rather than retard job creation and economic growth.  One continuing economic bright spot already exists in the telecommunications sector, where several prospects for generating new jobs exist.  Unfortunately, federal bureaucrats continue to obstruct those prospects.  The leading current example is spectrum and, specifically, Big Labor special interests pressuring the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to block telecom companies from buying unused wireless broadband.  That pressure only serves to obstruct economic recovery, because more access to spectrum for service providers would mean greater incentive to invest, and in turn more business opportunities that would raise revenue and create jobs.

For example, a recent study by NDN found that from April 2007 to June 2011, broadband companies created some 1,585,000 new jobs in their transition from 2G to 3G wireless technologies and Internet infrastructure.  NDN also noted that “the investments being undertaken today to upgrade wireless network and Internet technologies from 3G to 4G hold comparable promise for job creation.”  Similarly, a Deloitte study from last year agreed with NDN’s assertion, estimating that U.S. investment in 4G networks could generate anywhere from $25 to $53 billion in economic revenue between 2012 and 2016.  Furthermore, according to their study, these investments could produce between 371,000 and 771,000 new jobs and account for $73 billion to $151 billion in GDP growth.

Unfortunately, union bosses oppose spectrum transactions in favor of their own self-interest.  For instance, in comments filed with the FCC, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) falsely claimed that the transaction “agreements would appear to limit the availability of competitive services, dividing up geographic service areas for particular companies, leading to reduced investment in infrastructure, job losses, and ultimately, higher prices for consumers.”  As noted above, however, independent studies refute their allegation and attest to the economic and job benefits of allowing spectrum to be sold to companies that will apply it toward better customer service.  The spectrum sale will not only boost the economy and create jobs, but also benefit consumers by alleviating the oncoming spectrum crunch.   Greater access to spectrum will also create additional incentive to invest more toward innovation, which in turn means new devices, applications and services.  Providers will be able to upgrade their networks to a 4G LTE that has further geographic reach, faster downloads and greater capacity.

If the FCC continues to obstruct the sale , however, the quality of Internet service and our economy more generally will suffer due to the gradual exhaustion of existing spectrum.  In order to ensure that the domestic telecom sector continues to flourish, spectrum must therefore be made available to those who need it and who have the ability to use it in the most constructive way.   Union leaders should stop playing games that harm actual workers, and the FCC must put an end this obstruction.

Join CFIF Corporate Counsel and Senior Vice President Renee Giachino today from 4:00 p.m. CST to 6:00 p.m. CST (that’s 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. EST) on Northwest Florida’s 1330 AM WEBY, as she hosts her radio show, “Your Turn: Meeting Nonsense with Commonsense.”  Today’s guest lineup includes:

4:00 (CST)/5:00 pm (EST):  Lance T. Izumi, Pacific Research Institute:  “Obama’s Education Takeover”;

4:30 (CST)/5:30 pm (EST):  Quin Hillyer, CFIF Fellow:  Bogus Oil Cases;

5:00 (CST)/6:00 pm (EST):  Guy Benson, Townhall.com:  Presidential Race;  and

5:30 (CST)/6:30 pm (EST):  Eloise Caggiano, Desiree Heroux, Martha Szymoniak: Avon Walk for Breast Cancer.

Listen live on the Internet here.   Call in to share your comments or ask questions of today’s guests at (850) 623-1330.

Upon taking office in 2009, the Obama Administration projected that its unprecedented government spending “stimulus” would prevent unemployment from exceeding 8%, which would occur all the way back in October 2009 and be down to approximately 6% today.

Instead, with today’s announcement from the Labor Department, unemployment held steady at 8.3% last month.  That makes 37 consecutive months above the 8% mark the Obama Administration said we wouldn’t exceed at all, the most since the federal government began keeping records.  Moreover, the number of new jobs added is barely enough to tread water, despite Obama Administration celebrations to the contrary.  Whereas unemployment quickly plummeted from 10.8% to 6.7% following implementation of Reagan’s tax cuts, it has increased under Obama from 7.8% to over 10% and three straight years over 8%.

Last month, we recalled Barack Obama’s false promise in February 2009 “to cut the deficit we inherited by half by the end of my first term in office.”  Instead, the nation’s deficit went from $455 billion in 2008 to $1.4 trillion in 2009, $1.3 trillion in 2010, $1.3 trillion in 2011, and now another projected $1.3 trillion for 2012.   Today, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just announced that the February 2012 deficit of $229 billion is the single largest monthly budget deficit in American history.

A $229 billion deficit would probably be close enough to make good on Obama’s promise to cut the $455 billion 2008 deficit in half as he approaches the end of his “first” term.  Except that it turned out to be for one month, not one year.

Join CFIF Corporate Counsel and Senior Vice President Renee Giachino today from 4:00 p.m. CST to 6:00 p.m. CST (that’s 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. EST) on Northwest Florida’s 1330 AM WEBY, as she hosts her radio show, “Your Turn: Meeting Nonsense with Commonsense.”  Today’s guest lineup includes:

4:00 (CST)/5:00 pm (EST):  Sarah Torre, Research Assistant at The Heritage Foundation:  Obamacare;

4:30 (CST)/5:30 pm (EST): Vern McKinley, Research Fellow at the Independent Institute:  “Financing Failure: A Century of Bailouts”;

5:00 (CST)/6:00 pm (EST):  Jennifer Ponson, Pensacola State College:  Florida Skills Competition and Worlds Career Expo;  and

5:30 (CST)/6:30 pm (EST):  Troy Senik, CFIF Fellow:  Energy and Gas Prices

Listen live on the Internet here.   Call in to share your comments or ask questions of today’s guests at (850) 623-1330.

Condolences to the family and friends of one of the conservative movement’s leading figures, Andrew Breitbart.  His contributions and innovations are innumerable, but he was also a man who was genuinely gracious, personable and selfless even at times when nobody was watching and he stood to gain nothing of import personally.  Truly a nice, brilliant father, husband and leader.

I can only say that the Air Force senior acquisition executive, David Van Buren, is not satisfied with the quality of the documentation supporting the award decision.”

That was U.S. Air Force Secretary Michael Donley yesterday, regarding the USAF decision to vacate a $353 million attack aircraft contract awarded late last year to Brazilian manufacturer Embraer, and to investigate the process by which the contract was awarded.

We at CFIF monitored and criticized that process and voiced our concerns directly to former Defense Secretary Robert Gates. 

By way of background, two defense companies competed for the contract to provide military aircraft to Afghanistan:  Hawker Beechcraft of Wichita, Kansas, and Brazil’s Embraer.  Disturbingly, Embraer receives subsidies from the Brazilian government, which has publicly opposed the War on Terror and American efforts against Iran and Venezuela, but nevertheless shamelessly sought to profit from U.S. foreign policy.  Additionally, a provision within the potential Embraer contract known as the “Golden Share” clause would allow the Brazilian government to shut down the operation at any time during the production or maintenance of the aircraft.  Alarmingly, the United States would possess no recourse in the matter. 

Hawker Beechcraft would sustain an estimated 1,400 domestic jobs, whereas Brazil’s Embraer would offer only 50 final domestic assembly positions.  Moreover, the Hawker Beechcraft AT-6 is based upon an aircraft already in wide use by the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, the North American Treaty Organization (NATO) and other American allies.  Consequently, that familiarity and logistical infrastructure advantage would allow for substantial cost savings over the new aircraft’s life cycle.  This is particularly important at a time when the Defense Department seeks cost control measures.

Although this situation remains unresolved, the USAF decision to overrule and investigate the dubious award to Embraer is a very encouraging step in the right direction.