Pentagon Achieves Savings by Delaying Weapons Purchases
By Julian E. Barnes
The Pentagon’s budget for fiscal 2013 achieves much of its savings by delaying weapons purchases. The Defense Department will slow the pace of their purchases of F-35 fighter jets, a next-generation ballistic missile submarine, additional Reaper drones and a variety of other programs.
The problem with that approach is that slowing down weapons purchases often drives up the per-unit cost of new planes, trucks and submarines, meaning that the Pentagon ends up spending more in the long run. (Lockheed Martin makes the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, while the Reaper drone is made by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems.)
Robert Hale, the Pentagon comptroller, said because of the budget control act passed last summer by Congress, the Pentagon must trim some $487 billion from its budget over the next 10 years. So the department had no choice, but in response to a question from a reporter, he acknowledged the downside.
“We tried to do them in ways that minimize the adverse effects,” he said. “But your point is well taken. Some of the stretch outs will result in higher unit costs.”
No comments:
Post a Comment