A GOVERNMENT-OWNED MANUFACTURING PLANT

I knew the Federal government owned the nuclear weapons labs like Livermore but I didn't know it was involved in more traditional weapons production.

Congress, White House fight over funding for tanks
By JOHN SEEWER
The Associated Press
ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION

LIMA, Ohio — Rows of sand-colored armored vehicles ready for deployment are parked outside the nation's only tank manufacturing plant. It's where welders and machinists for more than three decades have built the Abrams tank, which former President George W. Bush once called "the most effective armored vehicle in the history of warfare."

General Dynamics Corp.'s land systems unit, which operates the government-owned plant, estimates that the cost of shutting down the plant and then restarting it would be $1.6 billion, while keeping it open with minimal production over four years would cost $1.4 billion.