Taxpayers for Common Sense: "Don't Throw Good Money After Bad"

Ryan Alexander, President of public interest watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense, writes in today's Register Citizen that Congress shouldn't "throw good money after bad" by funding an alternate engine.

"But a number of studies commissioned from various agencies on whether or not a second F-35 engine program would save money found that cost savings would be negligible at best. Potential savings were greatly reduced when the high price of maintaining two separate production lines, supply chains and management teams was factored in. Plus, any cost savings would take at least a decade to realize because the second engine is so far behind developmentally.

Some proponents claim other potential benefits to a second engine, including industrial base sustainment, contracting accountability and convenience for our international partners. In a perfect world, perhaps these issues would be more important than cost. But fighting two wars in a desolate economic environment does not afford us the luxury of spending billions to address them all. And the termination of one contract, no matter how large, won’t cripple our industrial base: A $636 billion defense budget should provide plenty of projects for defense contractors in the foreseeable future."

The full column is here...