Wasteful Defense Spending Is a Clear and Present Danger

Wasteful Defense Spending Is a Clear and Present Danger
"When John McCain was shot down over Hanoi in 1967, he was flying an A4 Skyhawk. That jet cost $860,000.
Inflation has risen by 700% since then. So Mr. McCain's A4 cost $6.1 million in 2008 dollars. Applying a generous factor of three for technological improvements, the price for a 2008 Navy F18 fighter should be about $18 million. Instead, we are paying about $90 million for each new fighter. As a result, the Navy cannot buy sufficient numbers. This is disarmament without a treaty.
The situation is worse in the Air Force. In 1983, I was in the Pentagon meeting that launched the F-22 Raptor. The plan was to buy 648 jets beginning in 1996 for $60 million each (in 1983 dollars). Now they cost $350 million apiece and the Obama budget caps the program at 187 jets. At least they are safe from cyberattack since no one in China knows how to program the '83 vintage IBM software that runs them.
There are other problems. Navy shipbuilding fiascoes like the staggering overruns on new surface combatants, the near total failure of the Army's Future Combat System that was meant to re-equip the entire army, the 400% cost overrun of the new Air Force weather satellite -- to name but a few -- all prove that we are currently unable to design, develop and deliver major weapons systems in anything approaching a cost-effective and timely manner. The Government Accountability Office recently reported that the cost overruns for the top 75% procurement programs were over $295 billion. We are rapidly disarming ourselves, even as defense spending grows.
On May 22, President Obama signed the Weapons System Acquisition Reform Act. Despite the grandiloquent name, it is in fact just an addition of 20,000 more bureaucrats who will only make matters worse.
Why is this happening? Wher"