It took a long time for me to understand that a lot of the stock narratives about what motivates members of Congress is mostly not how it is portrayed. Do we really think most members of Congress these days care about "jobs for their districts" in the simple way it's presented? Or do they care about "massive opportunities for their broader circle to put their fingers in the pie and extract some filling?
The article doesn't even really support the "jobs" headline if you squint just right."
But the Pentagon last year made a startling announcement: Eight of the 10 Freedom-class littoral combat ships now based in Jacksonville and another based in San Diego would be retired, even though they averaged only four years old and had been built to last 25 years."Jobs" is the excuse, as it's often the excuse, but lol.
The decision came after the ships, built in Wisconsin by Fincantieri Marinette Marine in partnership with Lockheed Martin, suffered a series of humiliating breakdowns, including repeated engine failures and technical shortcomings in an anti-submarine system intended to counter China’s growing naval capacity.
Then the lobbying started.
A consortium of players with economic ties to the ships — led by a trade association whose members had just secured contracts worth up to $3 billion to do repairs and supply work on them — mobilized to pressure Congress to block the plan, with phone calls, emails and visits to Washington to press lawmakers to intervene.