By Bill Raack, St. Louis Public Radio
St. Louis, MO – U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill says she will fight to change the Pentagon's mind about the future of Boeing's C-17.
The transport plane, parts of which are made in St. Louis, is not funded in President Obama's proposed budget for fiscal 2011.
McCaskill says the C-17 is a superior plane to Lockheed's C-5, which is being modernized. But she admits that Congress won't be able to keep the C-17 line open forever.
"This is one of those difficult situations where we have thousands of jobs in St. Louis that I desperately want to hold on to. But obviously we can't force the military to continue to buy an aircraft that it doesn't want and it says it doesn't need," McCaskill said.
Last year, McCaskill and Republican Kit Bond led Congress to overrule the president and appropriate $2.5 billion for ten C-17's.