75-11-A6
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Cost Overruns
TranscriptIn the eyes of some, money wasted by the military is more expensive than waste by other government agencies. I'll be right back. In Washington, there's a government agency which truly is a friend of the taxpayer, the G.A.O. short for General Accounting Office. G.A.O.'s function is to look for waste and to shed light in dark corners where dwell cost overruns and other extravagances. A cost overrun is very simply the name given to any undertaking that's supposed to cost x number of dollars and winds up costing two or three times x number of dollars. The theory is that once extravagance has been exposed, Congress will in righteous indignation ride forth to smite the guilty and defend the taxpayer, and sometimes some Congressmen do, but only when the extravagance is laid at the door of national defense. Oh there are conscientious members of Congress who strive valiantly to curb the excesses of government spending, but their words somehow are ignored by their colleagues and considered unnewsworthy by much of the media. G.A.O. has no trouble getting attention when it reports on cost overruns and the acquisition of tanks, planes and other weaponry produced by, quote, "the industrial military complex," unquote. But a recent report by G.A.O. has been greeted with nationwide silence on the part of those who usually are most vocal about other reports. It's just possible this is due to the fact that this latest report astonishingly reveals that 269 recent government construction projects have ripped off the taxpayers by about $57 billion and most of the extravagance was in non-military projects. Despite the fact that three-fourths of the audited projects were military, eighty percent of the cost overruns were in the one-fourth that was not military. The projects originally approved as costing $76 billion finished up costing a $133 billion and according to the audit, this was not due to inflation. The cost was hiked by changes and add-ons, some ended up costing 10 times the original estimate. I know that figures and statistics are hard to absorb in a single hearing, particularly for those of you who are listening and driving at the same time. So let me try to sum it up. The audit covered 269 projects. 210 were military. 59 were non-military. The extravagant overruns for the 59 non-military averaged 15 times as much per project, accounting for 46 of the 57 billion dollars in extra cost. That's more than enough to balance the budget. It's also enough to make you wonder why Congress is so quiet. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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