> What is that based on? Just suspicion? (At least that honest!) It's based on the sections of DOD I worked in, with, and had visibility into around me, along

> What is that based on? Just suspicion? (At least that honest!) It's based on the sections of DOD I worked in, with, and had visibility into around me, along with reading GAO reports (there are too many to read them all, but grab a few and you'll see some remarkable waste and failures). At one point I had a job to help a group become more efficient (in context: delivering on time instead of late, delivering on or at least near budget instead of grossly over), what I saw looking under the hood was exactly what I suspected. A small corner of the DOD that was wasting at least 10-20% of their budget every year because of ineffective coordination across teams often over absolutely stupid things, and that was just the parts I studied relevant to my job at the time. I'm extrapolating from that experience and the other information I've seen over the years. And, importantly, I'm talking about what can be cut before it impacts capabilities and readiness. Somewhere in this range you'll have to do reorganizations and realignments to continue reducing the DOD budget while maintaining capabilities. If we went back in time 7 or 8 years I could give you a lot better information than that because I was more actively tracking things. Here are a couple reports though that demonstrate the kinds of things I saw at the time: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-106912 https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-106912 I haven't gone over it all but it's not a pretty picture. Most of the projects they examined are delayed by more than a year, some as much as three, and have had median budget increases of $163 million. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about. IT procurement in DOD is fundamentally broken, and accounts for billions in wasted spending. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-106749 https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-106749 $1.84 billion spent on modernizing ships that will never sail. It's possible that some efforts will start, become OBE and abandoned after spending a lot of money (maybe even billions) but this is normal in DOD, rather than extraordinary.