After President-elect Donald Trump complained, Boeing said it will lower the price on a new Air Force One fleet.
We hope close scrutiny of all government purchases, operations and outlays will be something the new president takes very seriously. It's something every incoming president says he'll do, but very few actually follow through. Oh, most presidents tinker with numbers to make it look like they have saved money here and there, but the federal government inexorably continues its outward bloat.
Earlier this month, Trump tweeted that the government should cancel the presidential order for two planes because of its $4 billion price tag.
"Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents," he said, "but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!"
Trump also had tweeted about the bill from Lockheed Martin for the cost of the F-35 fighter jet program.
History has shown on many occasions that government contracts tend to get padded. The Pentagon alone paid for $436 hammers, $640 toilet seats and $7,600 coffee makers in the mid-1980s, according to the Project on Government Oversight.
We have no way of knowing what was in the Boeing contract, but we do know Boeing Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg said he would find a way to lower the cost after meeting with Trump at the president-elect's Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., Wednesday.
"We're all focused on the same thing here," he said. "We're going to make sure that we give our war fighters the best capability in the world and that we do it in a way that is affordable for our taxpayers. It was a terrific conversation. Got a lot of respect for him. He's a good man. And he's doing the right thing."
Trump, known for his business deals and author of the best-seller "The Art of the Deal," has a good "business head," Muilenburg said.
"We're going to get it done for less than [$4 billion], and we're committed to working together to make sure that happens," he said. "I was able to give the president-elect my personal commitment on behalf of the Boeing Company. This is a business that's important to us. We work on Air Force One because it's important to our country, and we're going to make sure that he gets the best capability and that it's done affordably."
Trump also met Wednesday with Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson, who called the meeting "productive."
"I appreciated the opportunity to discuss the importance of the F-35 program and the progress we've made in bringing the costs down," she said. "The F-35 is a critical program to our national security, and I conveyed our continued commitment to delivering an affordable aircraft to our U.S. military and our allies."
The president-elect, after a two-part security briefing that followed the meetings with Muilenburg and Hewson, sounded as if there was room for movement on the F-35s.
"We're just beginning," he said. "It's a dance. It's a little bit of a dance. But we're going to get the costs down, and we're going to get it done beautifully."
We hope it is just the beginning - the beginning of a presidency where the American people can expect someone will be on their side in containing costs and shrinking government rather than the opposite.