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'm going to solve that."

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

But there'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's like the folks who point to a funny study grant they found in the National Science Foundation's budget, teach Koalas to type or something, & say, "See! Government waste. This is the problem." Those people see $500k being "wasted" yet don'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.