Lobbyists Line Up to Sway Special Committee

By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: September 21, 2011

WASHINGTON — With television cameras rolling last week, aerospace executives warned of dire consequences if Congress cuts hundreds of billions of dollars in Pentagon spending, and they promised a full-throttled campaign to stop it.

As if to prove the point, one panelist, Dick McNeel, who runs a North Carolina supplier of military parts, abruptly left the dais before the briefing was even over and dashed to a meeting with Senator Patrick J. Toomey to fight the kind of cuts that Mr. McNeel says could cost jobs. It is all part of an effort, Mr. McNeel said, “to make sure Washington knows how we feel.”