As somebody who lives close to the Hamburg Airbus Factory and read a lot about the Boeing story: the regulators are more strict within the EU, and my feeling is the biggest mistake in the whole Boeing saga was to have them regulate themselves.

While there might be a economic benefit to not having to go the extra mile to get a regulators aproval, this can bite you really badly if you cannot uphold quality yourself any longer. And the interviews I heard wirh Boeing personel is nothing I ever heard even in personal exchanges with Airbus people. They surely also have their issues, bur to me it feels like a few magnitudes difference in severity.

So in short: underfunding the FAA isn’t doing you airplane manufacturers a favour in the long term. I know in the US people are usually anxious to give any job to the state, but regulating is actually one of the things they should do, and should do well