It’s Official: Boeing To Keep 777X Construction In Washington State
The story speaks for itself. (Emphasis mine.)
The 51-to-49 [%] ratification of the contract [by Washington’s machinist union] ends a nationwide search by Boeing for a new manufacturing home for the planned 777X, a 350- to 400-seat jetliner scheduled for delivery in 2020, and its carbon fiber composite wings. Twenty-two states had offered 54 sites for Boeing to evaluate, each hoping to win potentially thousands of high-value aerospace jobs.
With the approval of the union, the chief executive of Boeing’s commercial unit, Ray Conner, confirmed that the 777X and its wings would be built in Washington state.
“The future of Boeing in the Puget Sound region has never looked brighter,” Conner said. “This will put our workforce on the cutting edge of composite technology, while sustaining thousands of local jobs for years to come.”
The Missouri Legislature opened a very special session just for Boeing to lure production of the 777X to the Show-Me State, and the state and Saint Louis County together offered more than $3 billion in tax incentives to the aviation giant. Although the Left was largely silent on the matter, the Show-Me Institute repeatedly criticized the cronyism of the proposal — a proposal that followed hot on the heels of a failure to pass broad-based tax cuts only months before.
If the state has billions just lying around for economic development, then the case for cutting taxes in 2014 is even stronger than it was in 2013. And thanks to the special session, practically every policymaker in Jefferson City is now on the record as endorsing tax cuts for businesses to spur economic growth. If big tax cuts are good enough for Boeing, big tax cuts are good enough for the rest of Missouri’s job creators.
