Republican Senators Chales Grassley (IA), John Warner (VA), and John McCain (AZ) have written a strongly worded letter to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, questioning the Boeing Co.’s attempt to write off $615 million in penalties assessed in the 2004 scandal over Boeing’s corrupt practices in its snagging of a lucrative Air Force tanker leasing contract — a contract later rescinded when the scandal broke open. The notion that taxpayers are supposed to pay Boeing’s penalty (in the form of reduced tax revenue to government), as opposed to, oh, I dunno, Boeing paying for it, is staggering. But all too predictable in the anything-goes military contractor gold rush of the Bush years.
Next questions: how come it’s Republican senators trying to hold Boeing accountable for pulling a fast one on its corporate taxes? Where are the Democrats on this? And especially, where are the Democratic senators from Boeing’s new home state of Illinois, Richard Durbin and wunderkind Barack Obama, and where are the Democratic senators from Boeing’s old home state of Washington, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell?
You pose great questions.
But really we’re all going to pay for it any way. Boeing can always raise prices — it sure as hell won’t cut executive compensation.
raping and pillaging of the nations coffers, just wake me when it’s election time.
Probably Republican senators because the information was leaked to them to use in an election year. The same information probably just made it to the Dems. desk