Let Go of Boeing

The city of Renton is ready to say goodbye to Boeing. Are you? "That's 300 feet of waterfront property," says Alex Pietsch, Renton's municipal director of economic development, referring to Boeing's 737 and 757 assembly plant, which has dominated the city's downtown neighborhood on Lake Washington for 60 years. "The plan we've mapped out would bring in 40,000 jobs," tens of thousands more than Boeing supplies.

Pietsch and the rest of Renton's civic leaders in no sense hope to rid themselves of the city's biggest employer. But a long-rumored plan to move the Renton production line north to Everett seems inevitable, and Boeing already has applied for an environmental-impact study, which could lead to plant closure and redevelopment of its prime 280 acres.

"So sure," says Pietsch, "we have to plan ahead for any eventuality."

Stiffening its upper lip, Renton appears to be ahead of the pack in this new reality show, Life Without Boeing: Can We Survive? As scripted by the Lazy B, local and state taxpayers are being asked to strip down to their wallets and all paddle together to keep this $50 billion-a-year business afloat with "incentives." The most recent example involved negotiating an embarrassing obstacle course of political pep rallies and late-night legislative love-ins. The goal was to see just how far we could stretch our dignity and state budget for a company ranked 42nd on the Fortune 500. It's still unclear where the trail will lead. All we're told is that, should we fail, Boeing, born here 87 years ago, could fly, fly away.

So the official line goes, anyway.

Gov. Gary Locke is among those telling it. Locke predicts an economic nuclear winter if Boeing fails to announce later this year that it will build the proposed new midsize economy jet, the 7E7, in Washington. No matter that production of other jet models will continue here for years. The governor and economic experts insist that without helping Boeing, we face job losses, darkened markets, population declines, and scorched-earth economic patterns. Politicos were almost desperate to join the Boeing chorus, donating their grave concerns and free hot air. How far they'd go was personified by an op-ed piece in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer last week. Written by County Executive Ron Sims and County Council member Larry Phillips, it was memorably headlined "Sewage Treatment Plant Brightens Our Chance to Land the 7E7."

THE RELENTLESS, ONE-SIDED political and media barrage left some taxpayers rooting for downsizing. After all, couldn't Locke's dire predictions also be seen as the answer to those quality-of-life issues that drive us nutsunstoppable growth, soaring home prices, crowded schools, and impromptu parking lots laughingly called freeways? Couldn't a thinning of our workforce, the leveling of our growth-addicted economy, and a general slowing of the regional pulse lower our blood pressures and assure a longer, mellower existence?

Is Boise all that bad?

Not that anyone supports throwing people out of work and forcing them to move so we can have our fishing hole back (although, if it works out that way . . . ). But was all that public groveling necessary for a corporation so often accused of corruption that it recently had to take out a newspaper ad in major papers like The New York Times to defend its "integrity"?

As Locke said in his letter to Boeing, "There are solid reasons why Microsoft, Amazon, Nordstrom, Starbucks, Washington Mutual, Costco, and others that are No. 1 in their industry are located here. Washington is a great state, and we're making our business climate even better."

He was effectively begging Boeing to stay. But he could just as well have said, "Hey, these other guys are doing OK. What's your problem?" Locke might have brought up the fact that Washington's tax system over the years was already structured around Boeing, that countless laws and regulatory practices have been changed on the company's behalf, and that no one else has demanded more state corporate welfare than you big babies! Don't take it out on our long-supportive communities and your loyal blue-collar workforce, he might have added. They weren't the ones who handed the jetliner lead over to Airbus.

But Locke, quaking at the thought he'd be remembered as the Governor Who Lost Boeing, vowed to "do whatever it takes" to appease company execs. He issued fearful warnings of a new Boeing bust if Washington loses the 7E7 final-assembly plant. In particular, Locke claimed, using what eggheads call the job-multiplier effect, the new factory would create or preserve tens of thousands of regional jobs.

If the plant isn't built, "we're talking about a potential loss of 135,000 jobs," he said last week. Locke's Boeing domino theory assumes that, should the 7E7 go elsewhere, much of the rest of Boeing's Puget Sound work would either follow or be phased out.

THE ASSEMBLY PLANT would obviously be a prized asset. The fuel-efficient 7E7 is seen as a transitional replacement for the midsized 757 and 767 passenger jets, neither of which is selling well. (No one has ordered a 757 since 2001, and the 767 fetched just eight orders in 2002 and none this year.) But an Everett-built, Wichita-modified 767 tanker line might well continue into the next decade and more, thanks to a porky leasing deal with the Air Force worth $16 billion to $100 billion. And the sales future of the 737 linewhether built in Renton or moved to Everettis at least 20 years, says Boeing, with the new-generation 737-900 stepping into the 757's niche.