GE whiz

Disheartening development on the "Tame that federal budget by targeting every program but ours" front.  The U.S. House this week voted to kill $450 million in funding for the F136, an "aleternaate engine" for the new Joint Strike Fighter. This does not please the Terre Haute Tribune-Star, which notes the 200 high-paying jobs that would not be added at the local General Electric susidiary:

The funding cut was fueled by the freshman class of House Republicans, whose elections were driven in large part by their pledges to cut federal spending and shrink the size of government. The White House and Pentagon also support the funding cut because they see it as wasteful duplication in defense spending.

[. . .]

Although the vote is a setback, we were pleased that first-term 8th District Rep. Larry Bucshon sided with the rest of the state's House delegation in opposing the funding cut. Bucshon was swept into office in the 2010 Republican tide and positions himself politically as a staunch conservative. But he listened to his constituents on this issue and voted in their best interests. We applaud him for that.

Yeah, hooray for the "staunch conservative" who is willing to fold on principle for the folks back home. They should also praise John Boehner, that tough fiscally conservative House Speaker who tried to stop the funding cutoff; GE has about 1,000 employees working on the engine in a facility near Cincinnati. Both Boehner and the Tribune-Star justify the duplication of expense by citing some far-off savings that is supposed to be achieved with having two competing engines.

And GE isn't giving up without a fight:

Total lobbying by GE and its subsidiaries soared to $39.3 million last year, a nearly 50% increase over 2009 levels. A team of 21 in-house General Electric staffers, including former Capitol Hill and Pentagon officials, lobbied on defense issues for the company during the last three months of 2010, congressional records show.