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PR Campaign To Save Boeing's C-17 Cargo Plane Takes Off

Boeing launched a massive public relations offensive Thursday, hoping to convince Congress to extend the life of the C-17 cargo plane, which has been in production since the early 1990s and has relied on congressional funding since 2006. Funding for the plane garnered widespread support in the past because its parts come from more than 650 suppliers in 43 states.

Boeing ran full-page advertisements in local newspapers in California and about 450 union members staged a rally near the plane's assembly line in Long Beach. Eighteen U.S. senators also wrote a letter seeking supporting in keeping the finding spigot open. Without funding, the production line is slated to stop in July 2011, and the factory probably will close.

"The C-17 is a classic congressional welfare case," says Laura Peterson, national security analyst for Taxpayers for Common Sense, adding that the Air Force and the Pentagon both say more C-17s aren't needed. But a union leader responds that even if they aren't needed now, they will be down the road.

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