Do you know what else is setting a dangerous precedent?
The use of these "top secret installations" to funnel hundreds of billions of dollars out of our federal budget and have ZERO idea how that money, which we don't even have and are borrowing from Red China and God knows where else, is being spent! It's corruption, plain and simple.
Well, Jmyrle, "Provide for the Common Defense"
IS right up there in the Preamble of the Constitution.
Doing so includes having a host of places you don't want people stomping around and rubbernecking at will, like missile launch facilities, Nuclear Submarines in port, Airfields (FOD potential), bombing and gunnery ranges, for a start, as well as a lot of technology we'd just rather keep mum so we can pull it out of the hat next time we're in combat with an enemy.
Stealth bombers, thermal sighting, and other goodies, unveiled in combat in the past have been shown to give us a definite edge in conflict. I have little doubt there are more rabbits in that hat.
While I'm no hawk, and definitely no war monger, the phrase
Si vis pacem, para bellum. makes a lot of sense to me.
I can justify our troops having the neatest gee-whiz gear, especially gear that really performs. That isn't cheap.
Is there waste? In anything that large, sure there is. But look at it this way.
A college roommate of mine was a civilian employee at Ft. Eustis (Virginia) in the 1970s. It came to the attention of the base commander that thousands of pens and (nice!) mechanical pencils clearly marked "U.S. Government Property" were leaving the base daily, in purses, pockets, pocket protectors, and the like. A couple of bins were set up at the gates and all such writing implements were required to be surrendered there, and put in the bins. The collection was a massive success, in that several four ft by four ft. by four ft. bins were filled with pens and pencils, requiring forklifts and trucks to haul back.
But someone did the math, on what it would cost to redistribute those pens and pencils, most of which would have come back on base the following day in the pockets, purses, and pocket protectors of those working there. It exceeded the purchase price of the lot. End of exercise.
Yes, some programs seem wasteful. The cost of ammo developed for the Zumwalt's railgun was considered prohibitive to the point the railgun was set aside as originally conceived. But I have to ask you, what would be the value of a serious over the horizon very long range hit on an enemy capital ship? Something they could not shoot back at? Or the same on an onshore target, while remaining a safe distance offshore? Or, to put it differently, what would be the cost of "them" having gone the full nine yards and developed their own, and then being able to invoke the same damage on our vessels which we could not match in range nor accuracy. Hmmmmm. Sometimes not having a capability costs far more than having it.
Development isn't cheap, even on the level (without scams or skimming), and prototypes are the most expensive gadgets of all.
The cost of rolling the first Model T off the assembly line was huge, and would have been absolutely prohibitive had production stopped there, because it would have included the cost of the assembly line and tooling. But by the last one, Ford was making a tidy profit at only $360/copy (volume sales). When we quit making an aircraft after just a few (B-2 Spirit, F-22), a submarine, or just a few shells for a railgun, they are going to be expensive. In quantity, that unit cost drops. As the weapons are upgraded, sometimes the facilities have to be upgraded, too. That costs money, but good maintenance is cheap compared to the lack thereof, and a weapon that doesn't work when it is needed is the most expensive of all. That said, almost all weapons systems have had 'bugs', the more complex the system, the more likely points of failure will be determined which were not foreseen, (like the M-16 and carbon fouling). Modern avionics and weapons systems are orders more complex than their predecessors, and making those systems bullet proof, idiot proof, and battle proof is a challenge.
As for borrowing that money from the Chinese, they are our next most likely opponent in any 'US vs a major power' armed conflict. We've been up against them before, in Korea and Vietnam. Borrowing their money to develop the weapons systems to beat them works for me.
But borrow that money (or rob our working folks) to feed the masses who won't (not can't, but won't) work, feed anyone who storms the border, buy friends in distant places who aren't (friends), and a huge host of other things the Federal Government does, are not Constitutionally authorized, and are the sort of thing better handled by the private sector from donated funds, (although some of that gee whiz military stuff gets used in relief efforts as well, like generating electricity and potable water after the Boxing Day Earthquake).
So borrowing money from the Chinese to suck up to special interest groups for votes (regardless of Party), with grand government giveaways right here at home seems an even more dangerous precedent to me.
