NYT editorial: The Big Tank That Couldn’t

The Republicans’ fervor for saving the taxpayers’ dollars doesn’t extend to one of the Pentagon’s costlier failures — the Marine Corps’ new Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, a hybrid landing craft and battle truck.

Twenty years in the making, the vehicle had so many breakdowns and cost overruns — and was based on such outdated war assumptions — that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates terminated it this month for a savings of $14.4 billion. This was after the project had eaten $3.3 billion, driving the cost per vehicle from $5 million to $17 million, with prototypes still stumbling through tests.

Mr. Gates, of course, instantly ran into the new Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Howard McKeon, who believes that defense spending is much too sacrosanct to be included in the full-scale slashing Republicans promise for the rest of federal discretionary spending. Hold off “precipitous action,” Republican appropriators advised the defense secretary as they began hearings into the E.F.V. and other worthy chunks of the $78 billion in savings Mr. Gates aims to effect across the next five years.

For the immediate moment, the secretary is rightly urging Congress to approve this year’s overdue Pentagon budget and put aside complaints about future cuts. “I have a crisis on my doorstep,” Mr. Gates warned about current military readiness.

(More here.)