What the Camel Looks Like
Monday, July 18, 2011 at 9:18AM | Klaas Hinderdael 
To justify their decision to kill the EFV, the administration offered the Senate Armed Services Committee a rare view of the entire camel of a program. As the FY12 SASC report says: "To support this conclusion the Marine Corps provided budget projections of the cost to buy the EFV, the MPC, the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, and other less numerous and expensive vehicles." (p. 25)
And not surprisingly, the data bore out the conclusion Gates had given when killing it: the EFV "would essentially swallow the entire Marine vehicle budget and most of its total procurement budget for the foreseeable future."
But the SASC report goes further:
"The committee agrees that the Marine Corps faces an immense budget challenge, but the problem is not confined to the EFV or the amphibious assault mission area. The fact is that the data that the Marine Corps presents shows that the Marine Corps’ ground vehicle portfolio is unaffordable by the Corps’ metrics even if a new amphibious tractor is removed altogether. The same is true for the O&S budget."
Unfortunately, that problem isn't just confined to the Marine Corps ground vehicle portfolio. CBO has annually said the same is true for the entire defense program. A great reminder that this year's budget projections are often just to get through this year. And the camel we’re buying is pretty ugly.
Reader Comments (2)
[...] Other experiences with this problem suggest that Congress and the administration will revise the program, though, rather than embracing these costs. Deadlines slip, costs fall off the horizon, and today’s projection looks more prescient. The sense of hidden debt is converted into outright hidden inefficiency. [...]
[...] SASC recently determined “that the data that the Marine Corps presents shows that the Marine Corps’ ground vehicle portfolio is unaffordable by the Corps’ metrics even if a new amphibious tractor is removed altogether. The same is true for the O&S budget.” Are these problems unique to the Corps or representative of shortcomings across the Department? [...]