Cancelling Defense Programs Isn't Cheap - HUMAN EVENTS

Cancelling Defense Programs Isn't Cheap - HUMAN EVENTS: "Last Monday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates revealed the Department’s vision for acquisition programs now and in the near future. He made some very tough calls and some that raise real questions.

On the canceled programs -- ranging from the new Presidential helicopter to the Airborn Laser missile defense aircraft -- people don’t just lay down their tools and walk away. Defense contracts -- like all other federal contracts -- require that the government pay much of the cost of shutting down what a contract might otherwise have required to continue for years. Laying people off, getting out of supplier contracts and closing factories are all expensive to do.

There are actual, up front cash costs to be considered amounting to billions of dollars of real taxpayer money. There are human costs. There are costs in the future when the Department has a military requirement for an urgent war-fighting capability and the technical, engineering, manufacturing capacity must be developed from scratch. (Now there’s a challenge: recreating an industrial capability can take decades)."