“It’s just a disaster. I’m extremely disappointed. It’s just one of the worst things in my whole life. I am just shocked over this.” — Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash.
A free market means you have to be competitive. If you can’t deliver the best value, you lose. And that’s exactly as it should be. If we want American technology to be the best in the world, then it has to be able to compete in the world marketplace.
According to Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne, the Northrop Grumann plane that beat out the Boeing contender is not only less expensive, but “across the spectrum, all evaluated, the Northrop Grumman airplane was clearly a better performer.” The Northrop Grumman plane has more troop capacity, more cargo capacity, more fuel capacity, greater reliability, and “superior air-refueling and airlift capability, enabling it to carry out specified [combat] scenarios with fewer aircraft.”
So what should the Pentagon do? Should they waste the taxpayers’ money on less efficient, less reliable, and more expensive planes that would require more aircraft to deliver the same quantity of fuel, exposing more personnel and equipment to unnecessary risk, just so they can award the contract to an American company? Or should they do what any rational decision-maker would do in a free market, and select the product that best satisfies the requirements and delivers the highest return on investment?
This isn’t a case where we’re farming out strategic military technology to a rival foreign power. Building wide body jets isn’t rocket science. There are no military secrets involved.
It isn’t even a case where we’re shipping massive quantities of jobs overseas. The planes are going to be built in Alabama. Last I heard, Alabama is still part of the United States (unless the South seceded again, and nobody noticed). Boeing isn’t going to be laying off any employees because of the loss of this contract; they just won’t be hiring the 2,000 new employees they would have hired if the contract had come through. However, 1,500 new jobs will be created at a new widebody jet plant to be built in Alabama. (Arguably, it’s strategically beneficial to have widebody jet assembly capability in more than one region of the country. Having it all concentrated in one place could be a strategic vulnerability.)
A net loss of 500 potential jobs is unfortunate, but we would stand to lose a lot more by lowering our DoD standards to protect an American company from having to compete in the free market. In a free market, competition drives improvement in goods and services. When you shield a product or company from legitimate competition, or grant them an unearned advantage, the end result is to make them even weaker and less competitive in the future. Any enterprise will reach a stage of stasis and stagnation unless continually motivated by a need to improve. Competition provides that impetus. That’s why competition is good. If Boeing were granted this contract, in spite of their inferiority to the competition, it would further insulate them from any incentive to improve.
By coddling American companies, protectionism makes our nation weaker, not stronger. How could that be patriotic?
Government is Not Your Daddy 
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