How the Pentagon Wasted $10 Billion On Military Projects

schwit1 writes: In the past decade, the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency has wasted $10 billion on defense projects that were either impractical and impossible. It's hard to choose a single quote showing the absurd stupidity of these projects — the article is filled with too many to choose from. Read it all and weep. However, here's one quote that typifies the attitude:

"Henry A. Obering III, a retired director of the Missile Defense Agency, said any unfulfilled expectations for SBX and the other projects were the fault of the Obama administration and Congress — for not doubling down with more spending. 'If we can stop one missile from destroying one American city,' said Obering, a former Air Force lieutenant general, 'we have justified the entire program many times over from its initiation in terms of cost.'"

We get the government we deserve. Until we stop electing candidates (from either party) who promise pork, we will continue to get pork, and waste, and a society that is steadily going bankrupt.

Comments

Re:Get over it !

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with the sentiment, but the way that the funds are allocated does not lead to good results. You need to spend a lot of money on projects that will fail to find the ones that will work, but you don't want to spend a lot of money on individual projects that will fail, and most especially you don't want to keep funding projects after it becomes obvious that they will fail. You don't want to fund projects based on which congressional district will get the money and you want to make it clear that researchers who discover something won't work early can easily get funding to work on their next project.

There are some good points in the above response. In response to the original post, the complains aren't always the case with all government research. For example, the SBIR program which often involves research projects that are "out there". They do it in a tiered system where they have phases: I, II and III. Phase I is a prototype/proof of concept. After that, the government project managers make a decision about whether the product is good enough to warrant Phase II funding. If it is, they go ahead and fund it. If it's REALLY good, they do a Phase III which is basically a commercialization. The company making the product is allowed to commercialize it, but the government gets it for free for a significant period (10 years or more). Additionally, even if the research is a flop, the government gets all rights to the data and as such, can use what was discovered/created as a base for other projects. So the money isn't "wasted", as was said in the original post, but the research/work completed on the project is available to help steer decisions on later projects.
With the OP's logic, we've "wasted" a lot of money on cancer research, but is it worth it? I would argue it is.

Death...

[zm]

So, preventing death using some sort of a missile defense is money well spent. Preventing death using health care is socialist bullshit. Fuck, yeah.

Re:But But But It's the Handouts That Are Bankrupt

[Skater]

Actually, if it's the Kompressor article I'm thinking of: The situation was that the husband and wife both had had well-paying jobs, then they both lost their jobs via the downturn in the economy, and the CAR WAS PAID FOR and not worth much, so they kept it, rather than - what? Trading it in on a used beater or something? So, yes, she was driving the Mercedes to pick up welfare checks, but they were, for lack of a better term, newly poor. It was likely if something happened to the Mercedes that they wouldn't be buying another one while still on welfare. Holding it up as an example of poor people owning nice cars and the handouts being out of control is misleading.

Re: We need More Pork! More!

[plopez]

Riiiiight........ because they were the ones that racked up huge deficits, started a criminal war in Iraq, and were the ones who put together the bank bailout plans and then bullied the next administration into implementing it. Nice job rewriting history.

Re:But But But It's the Handouts That Are Bankrupt

[plopez]

The 'Welfare Queen' myth started under the Nixon Administration. It has never been proven out either when the facts are checked or in my personal experience. Oh, and it seems that the 'Welfare Queen' is almost always black even though more white people are on welfare of one form or another, Perhaps a bit of racism in the mix?

Re: We need More Pork! More!

[jellomizer]

The republicans do not have a good spending record either. They cut democratic lead initiatives, and put money in their own, then they cut taxes that they really don't have budgeted to do. So they raise taxes other ways.
The democrats when in charge will cut republican lead initiatives, put money in their own, they will not revert the tax cuts that the republicans made, even though it doesn't solve the budget, so they raise taxes in other ways.

The real problem is the polarization of the normal citizen. The politicians will only cater to them. Those damn moderates who sway the elections are who the politicians should be really kissing up to... But moderates have been toss aside, figuring they do no have any political ideals. Because the more extreme on the Right and Left have pulled many of them who are in the edges away.

Re: We need More Pork! More!

[kilfarsnar]

If you think our problems can be solved by Democrats instead of Republicans, or Republicans instead of Democrats, you are watching the shell and not the pea.