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.

$10 Billion is a drop in the bucket

[Required Snark]

This is like worrying about dirty dishes when the house is on fire. You're concerned about stupid government spending, just contemplate the Iraq War.

The costs of the 2003-2010 Iraq War are often contested, as academics and critics have unearthed many hidden costs not represented in official estimates. The most recent major report on these costs come from Brown University in the form of the Costs of War, which totaled just over $1.1 trillion. The Department of Defense's direct spending on Iraq totaled at least $757.8 billion, but also highlighting the complementary costs at home, such as interest paid on the funds borrowed to finance the wars.

So $757.8 billion is the low ball amount that even the Pentagon can't hide. It seems a lot more likely that the Brown figure of $1.1 trillion is a more realistic number. No one at Brown has a personal stake in fudging the figures, unlike those in the military-industrial complex who live and die by the defense budget.

And that $757.8 billion is just the down payment. You want to see the real big bucks, look at the long term costs.

According to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report published in October 2007, the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost taxpayers a total of $2.4 trillion by 2017 when counting the huge interest costs because combat is being financed with borrowed money. The CBO estimated that of the $2.4 trillion long-term price tag for the war, about $1.9 trillion of that would be spent on Iraq, or $6,300 per U.S. citizen.

A 2013 updated study pointed out that U.S. medical and disability claims for veterans after a decade of war had risen to $134.7 billion from $33 billion two years earlier.

Remember, the Iraq War was completely voluntary. It was a war of choice. The two justifications used to start it were both completely wrong. First, Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack. It was Al Qaeda, and had nothing to do with Sadam Hussein. Second, there were no weapons of mass destruction, except for the left-overs from the Iran-Iraq war. These were the chemical weapons that the US helped Iraq obtain when they were fighting a proxy war for the US against Iran.

So upwards of $2 trillion has been spent on a war that we started for the wrong reasons. That's real serious government waste.

And it's not just the money. If you want to get really upset, check out the Casualties of the Iraq War. It will make you sick to your stomach.

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!

[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.