Too Much Waste

Sen Tom Coburn (R-OK) will unveil his annual report on egregious federal spending tomorrow morning.

Last year, Coburn's "Wastebook 2012" highlighted Pentagon missile defense efforts and the Navy's Littoral Combat Ship as among the most wasteful of federal programs. As Inside the Pentagon reported in October 2012:

Coburn's "Wastebook 2012" identifies more than $18 billion in "egregious" federal spending, highlighting 100 of the year's "countless unnecessary, duplicative and low-priority projects spread throughout the federal government," according to a statement from the senator's office.

The report complains at least $1 billion has been wasted because the Missile Defense Agency began building interceptors before research was complete, causing costs to skyrocket. "Due to the concurrent acquisition strategy, the Ground-based Midcourse Defense's newer interceptors alone have cost the taxpayers well over $1 billion more than originally planned," Coburn's report states. The agency will continue to use the risky development method, accepting the potential for new issues that "may require costly design changes and retrofit programs to resolve," the report adds.

The report also argues the Pentagon is wasting a significant amount of money in the Littoral Combat Ship program by building multiple ships based on two completely different designs. The Navy is now building two ships of each design with plans to build many more. Just for the four now under construction, the additional cost of using two designs is $148 million, the report states. The LCS program "would likely be better off fiscally and strategically with one design," Coburn's report argues.