re: #241 Targetpractice

In my experience (and I do have actual experience in this) the DoD is managed as well as any organization its size, but strategically it is a favorite political toy and this makes controlling the efficiency of the DoD in the long run impossible.

To illustrate: A great deal of defense spending is pork barrel. Ships are bought to keep shipyards open, planes are bought to keep the aerospace industry from collapsing, etc. Bases are kept open to keep employment in a congressional district (yes, even with BRAC.) While a program manager in any one of these efforts might with all good intention run their effort on budget, the effort to begin with exists for political purposes.

Note that I am only speaking of the DoD, not actual military units. IMO there is tremendous waste at the local level in the military due to the near universal idea that “things” are simply expendable. I used to see so much that was just thrown away.

Smaller government agencies are probably better managed - NASA, etc. Treasury has its act together most of the time, IME. The Ag department is a mess - not necessarily bad people but it is such a collection of tiny pork projects.