Gov. Phil Bryant and his economic team were excited to announce last week that Mississippi was going to get a slice of the action in building the newest generation of fighter jets.
Of course, such news doesn’t come for free. The company, Northrop Grumman, will get $3.4 million in state and local aid — almost as much as it plans to invest in expanding its Gulf Coast facility to handle making part of the F-35.
For that $3.4 million, Mississippi supposedly will get 60 new jobs over the next four years. At $57,000 a job, that’s a “bargain” considering some of the grotesquely expensive deals Bryant has struck lately, such as the $240,000 per job he encouraged state and county officials to give away to Continental Tire.
As remarkable as these corporate giveaways are, there was something else in The Associated Press story about the Northrop Grumman announcement that is worth a mention. Mississippi, said the story, will be one of 46 states that has some part in building the F-35.
Spreading the work is hardly an innovation in manufacturing efficiency. It is simply a matter of political expediency. This is how defense contractors keep as many people in Congress happy and the program off the cutting block, since members of Congress typically oppose anything — no matter how economically sensible — that would cost jobs in their states or districts.
Northrop Grumman is just one of the hundreds of subcontractors that Lockheed Martin Corp. is using to build the F-35 — the excesses of which are being passed on to the taxpayers.
The F-35 not too long ago was singled out by President Donald Trump as a glaring example of the chronic cost overruns within the defense industry. The 2,400 jets the U.S. has agreed to purchase are now projected to run about $400 billion, double the original price tag.
In an effort to appease Trump and other critics, Lockheed Martin announced earlier this year that it was able to find some savings for the next installment of 90 jets and bring the cost down by about 8 percent. Big whoop! The jets will still run between $95 million and $123 million apiece.
The question that should be asked is what these fighter jets would have cost if their parts had been made in a couple of dozen places instead of a couple of hundred. How much could Lockheed Martin have reduced the cost by consolidating manufacturing in a few states?
Defense contractors don’t ask these kinds of questions because they have no motivation to be efficient. What do they care if a jet costs $100 million to make rather than $50 million?
And besides, Congress really doesn’t want them to be efficient. That would mean fewer jobs the politicians can brag about creating.
