Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

Boeing Gives a $1 Million Gift to the Bush Campaign

Dan Froomkin writes:

The Downside of a Presidential Visit (washingtonpost.com): ...what it cost for the Boeing Co. to give all the workers at its plant outside Philadelphia the day off when Bush visited on Tuesday. Boeing spokesman Jack Satterfield told me yesterday that he estimates that it cost the company about $1 million. Satterfield said that Boeing decided that there was no way the Secret Service could sweep the facility with all the workers around. So about 4,500 employees got the day off with pay. (They're unionized.) Employees were offered tickets, and many of them accepted.... The rest of the tickets were distributed by the Bush campaign.

Satterfield was adamant that no one was paid to attend. "The point was, we told our people whether they came or not, they would be paid," he said. And he said the $1 million cost is being absorbed by Boeing -- not by the U.S. government, which of course is paying for pretty much everything Boeing is doing there.... "We have provisions for special charging which will be absorbed into what we call our overhead, and the federal government will not be charged," he said. Traditionally, that only happens when there's a massive snowstorm, or some other act of God, Satterfield said. "I'm not drawing any parallels, but I'm saying the circumstances were literally beyond our control."

Satterfield said Boeing was told up front that the president was coming on a campaign stop, not an official visit. And he said Boeing considered the legal and ethical issues before deciding that it was appropriate to proceed. He said the $1 million should not be considered a gift to the campaign.... Satterfield said he could not imagine any company -- particularly one providing services for the armed forces -- doing any differently.