Automatic Budget Cuts Might Affect The Program

The KC-46A tanker program could fall victim to automatic budget cuts that are possible this winter, but it is not certain that the program would be stopped.

After Congressional negotiators failed to reach a deal on deficit reductions last November, the clock started ticking down to January 1, 2013, a deadline set for automatic across-the-board budget cuts of about 10 percent unless Congress could come up with a way to make more targeted reductions. Military spending is included in the equation.

The Everett, WA, newspaper The Herald reports that one of the programs that could suffer is the nascent KC-46A tanker (pictured in artist's rendering), which will be built on a Boeing 767 airframe. The $35 billion contract to build the plane was won by Boeing after a protracted competition with rival Airbus. The company said in making its bid that the program would support some 11,000 jobs in Washington State alone.

But the Air Force is reportedly working to preserve the contract, because voiding it would be more expensive to the government than it would be to Boeing. The fixed-price deal means Boeing would be responsible for any cost overruns associated with the plane's development.

A letter sent to the Senate Majority Leader by Armed Services Committee leaders Carl Levin (D-MI), John McCain (R-AZ) and others on the committee calls for a bipartisan approach to solving the problem. If sequestration happens, some $4.3 billion could be pulled from the Air Force operations and maintenance budget, leaving the service the smallest it has been in its history.

FMI: www.af.mil