GE jet engine survives House

The Boston Globe reports:

The US House of Representatives risked a potential veto by President Obama yesterday when it approved a $690 billion defense bill that throws a lifeline to a disputed jet fighter engine with parts that would be built at a General Electric plant in Lynn.

Obama opposes the GE engine — which would be built as a backup engine for the F-35 joint strike fighter — and has said he will veto the entire bill if some provisions related to the program remain in the legislation. He also is threatening a veto over other items in the massive military spending bill, among them a limitation on his authority to reduce nuclear weapons.

The engine program — with hundreds of Bay State jobs at stake — has long been backed by the Massachusetts congressional delegation.

“It shows you that this is what it takes to kill a program at the Pentagon,’’ said Laura Peterson, a senior policy analyst for the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. “It’s kind of ridiculous that there is such an intense battle being waged over something that the Department of Defense says it doesn’t want.’’

The welfare-warfare state is supported by "progressives" in the very Blue state of Massachusetts.