There is a persistent belief in the self-financed miracle inside DoD. Generally the thinking goes: "This place used to run differently, we used to have fewer people in WWII, we must be wasting money and I& #39;m going to solve that."

And there probably is so degree of inefficiency. https://twitter.com/DavidLarter/status/1306299282144796673">https://twitter.com/DavidLart...

But there& #39;s not THAT much. I think what people who stare and billion-$ programs all day fail to appreciate is just how much money it costs to build, man, operate & maintain this stuff. You can tinker around the edges and save some coin but you start cutting bone pretty quick.

It& #39;s like the folks who point to a funny study grant they found in the National Science Foundation& #39;s budget, teach Koalas to type or something, & say, "See! Government waste. This is the problem." Those people see $500k being "wasted" yet don& #39;t realize how much Medicare costs.

You can save some drops in the bucket, but we have an ocean to fill

Fun fact: the combined topline budget of all four services is less (not by much) than the annual operating cost of just Medicare.