Why the Pentagon is Having Problems

We have to have a strong national defense and part of that involves constantly modernizing our equipment to the cutting edge and beyond. For decades, however, the Pentagon has shown an almost unerring ability to go way over budget and still get unusable systems that are either canceled outright or marginally meet the original design requirements. Here is another case in point.

The Marine One fleet of Presidential helicopters is being replaced. This is a needed upgrade, but Sikorsky was the soul bidder resulting in a total cost of $20 billion for 19 helicopters!  The unit cost for each helicopter of the new fleet is the same as a Presidential 747! Yes, these helicopters need to have special gear because of who they will be carrying but this is an astounding price tag. In contrast, a recent contract was signed with Boeing by DOD for the latest version of the Apache attack helicopters delivering 82 of these cutting edge birds for $1.2B, which is roughly $18.8 BILLION less than the new Presidential fleet. 

Strong defense yes; waste and gold-plating no!

www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/05/11/Obama-Admin-Approves-20-Billion-For-New-Presidential-Helicopters

www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/2014/03/ah64e-helicopter-contract.html