Britain’s Farnborough Air Show wrapped up last week after seven
ear-splitting days. To impress the excited kids and jaded dealers in
attendance, the U.S. sent an F-8, an F-15, and a pair of F-16s. But the
much anticipated F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter was a no-show.
After a runway fire grounded the fleet earlier this month, the
Department of Defense suspended negotiations to purchase the next batch
of the planes.
The troubled fighter is only the latest in a long and growing number
of cases where the DOD has bought poorly designed and massively
overpriced equipment for the nation’s armed forces. Across the military,
the average major Pentagon acquisition comes in at 40 percent over budget,
according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office.
In spite of the Pentagon’s well-documented history of profligacy, the
Congress continues to enlarge its responsibilities. The DOD’s mandate
now includes wide-ranging scientific and medical research and
international infrastructure projects, diffusing the focus on its core
mission—like buying planes that don’t set themselves afire on the
runway. That’s a disservice to America’s military and a burden to the
country’s taxpayers.
The F-35′s grounding is the latest setback in the development of an aircraft that’s already cost $400 billion. A recent GAO report noted that cost estimates for operating and supporting the F-35 fleet are now more than $1 trillion, “http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-07-28/the-pentagon-pays-too-much-for-everything-even-prescription-drugs#r=shared
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