Project late? Cost Overrun? Govt still awards bonus of $494 Million

[The Straight Story]

Army's Out-of-Control "Future"

As gut-wrenching as today's Times story on runaway Pentagon spending is, the article doesn't touch on what's quickly becoming the biggest defense contracting boondoggle of them all.

MULE012004-10-20.jpgReporter Leslie Wayne pulls out some great factoids in her piece today.

For instance, contractors on the Joint Strike Fighter, a next-generation fighter jet, received their full bonus award of $494 million from 1999 to 2003, even though the program was $10 billion over budget and 11 months behind schedule.

Contractors in the F-22A fighter jet program, over the same time period, received 91 percent of their performance bonus, or $849 million, even though the current phase of the program was $10 billion over budget and two years late.

And a handy chart shows that the per-unit cost of the F-22 was 189 percent higher than originally expected.

But that same chart shows the Army's massive Future Combat Systems modernization program costing a mere $127 billion -- up a paltry 54 percent since it was introduced.

Which was true a couple of days ago.

http://www.defensetech.org/