Name:   Talullahhound - Subject:   Lakngulf Date:   2/23/2016 4:38:14 PM

Okay, I will take you on about the budget.  The last 2 years of my career, I was the Deputy Director of our agency, so I got to deal with the budget and the other day to day stuff that keeps an organizatin running.  Yes, people do rush around spending money at the end of the fiscal year, becasue if you do not use the money, you will be decremented that amount the next year and next year, you may need it.  I think I have mentioned before that when those cost of living increases are made, agencies do not get more money to pay for them.  They have to reorganize their money - i.e. move money between budget lines to pay for that.  But you don't get to just do that - you have to ask permission from the Comptroller.  People build in extra money to their budgets for contingencies - like when the assistant secretary for Middle east policy decides to make a trip to several countries and you are directed to provide an engineer for the trip.  This wasn't in the budget, so you take it out of our agency funds.  That's why people try to spend all of their dollars at the end of the year - and by the way, it only pertains to money expiring at the end of the fiscal year.  Not one agency will giver back money that they have been allocated because they may need the same level of funding the next year.  It's really good business - and typically the money in our agency would be appropriated for upgrades to computers, office furniture or supplies, something that is needed but may have been lined out of your budget submission. 

Now about those toilet seats.  You know that the Air Force did not spend $600 on toilet seats... they made a buy of parts - I can't remember how much it was - everything from the mundane (toilet seats) to electronics.  So some fool took the total of the amount spent and simply divided it by the number of items bought and that had the AF spending $600 on toilet seats.  Let me tell you why there are so many cost overruns and high prices - because the government is an unreliable customer.  The government takes hits to their funding, and then the production schedule has to be extended which costs money and increases the cost.  Computer technology changes.  In the course of one radar program I worked on, the spec called for 32 bit, which became 64bit (cause you could no longer get 32 bit, to whatever came next.  It cost money to make the changes, but those changes couldn't be ignored.  That was a long time ago, and you know

Lets consider for a monment the Joint Strike Fighter, F-35.  You know the horror stories about the cost and the problems.  That is one of the most advanced aircraft ever built.  It snythesizes so much sensor data and provides the pilot useable data.  No one has ever done this.   the speed with which technology changes, so in the course of a program, you will have those kinds of changes. The User (i.e. the Military) changes or adds on additional capabiities, which cost additional money - which can also change the schedule - more money.  What is not usually discussed is that in order to afford to buy it, the U.S. had to share the development with 7 foreign countries, and that means that classified data has to be provided to their companies - this is something that is not normally done.  With a foreign country - yes; but not their industry.  So we have to figure out who is doing what, and who will need what classified data to do their part.  This is one smal piece, yet I spent almost a year working with industry to figure it out  - transfer safeguards, node security, all this takes time and it all costs money.  So now there is an airplane that costs a lot of money and involves some of the most advanced synthesis of data ever.  And then the budget gets cuts and suddenly we are reducing the number of aircraft that will be bought and requires us extending the production line again -  big cost increases - industry is losing their economy of scale in buying components and parts.  That's what drives a lot of cost overruns  and increases costs.  JSF is an extreme example, but it happens to military programs across the board. 

Then there is Congress.  Did you know that every time you brief a staffer or a member of Congress on your very nice program, one slide that is always required is a breakdown of all the companies involved and what state they are in... and sometimes it even includes the number of jobs in each state.  I worked with a Army program called SADDARM.  The program was a disaster  and the Army zeroed out it's budget 3 times... only to have Congress insert funding specifically  for it 3 times.  We called it the program that would not die. 

Then  there were engines for one aircraft (I'm sorry, it's been a while I can't remember exactly which one - might have been Apache helicopters or it might have been JSF).  The decision was made to go with the Rolls Royce engine over Ge's engine.  Ge was outraged and lobbied the HIll and the next thing there was a line item for Ge to develop a 2nd engine, although there was no need.  The real reason that F-35 will never be cancelled?  Because there are too many companies and too many jobs in too many states for Congress to allow it to be killed.  Remember the SGT YORK?  That poor program - it didn't work, they could not figure out the problem and the user kept adding capabilities that it must have.  The military wanted to kill it.  Congress kept funding it on a special budget line.  It wasn't until member of Congress were invited to see it operate that it got cancelled. The system ignored the target and went for the fan in the latrine.  The latrine was destroyed and the buffet lunch for Congress was by flying debris.  Yes, this is true.  The poin is that DoD sometimes loses out to lobbyists and the Hill and programs that should be cancelled are not. 

Now do bad judgements get made? Yes.  I worked on a radar program where a very bad decision was made with regard to it's logistic support.  The idea was that someone did a fault calculation and those parts that were most likely to fail would be stocked near the equipment and those that failed less often would only be kept in the rear maintenance shops.  This was "innovative" thinking and was supposed to save the government money because you would need less of the expensive electronics parts that were stocked in the maintenance shops.  except the calculations were wrong, and the parts weren't where they were needed, and not ordereed in sufficient quantities.  So then there was a "get well plan" that  had to be developed, and then monitored and when that get well plan didn't fix the problem, another had to be created. It went on like that for several years.  Costs money - the contractor charged the government for additional parts, extended production, etc.  Yes, the contractor had made the calculations, but the government approved them. 

This is just my limited view of what drives cost and cost overruns and production overruns.  Nobody wants it to happen and for the most part it is no one's fault.  It's all driven by money decisions.