Washington, D.C. – The following is a written statement by Keith Ashdown, Vice-President of Policy at Taxpayers for Common Sense on the elimination of the Comanche helicopter program as announced by the Pentagon:

After two decades, billions of dollars, and not one helicopter built, the final curtain has fallen on one of the most wasteful military money pits in United States history.

Taxpayers for Common Sense supports the Army’s proposed options of applying the savings realized from the cancellation of the Comanche Program to the purchase of updated Black Hawk, Apache and Chinook helicopters; upgrading 1,400 other helicopters; and increasing investment in UAV’s. The development of the Comanche helicopter program is a case study on what not to do when trying to develop a new weapons program, and we should carefully apply the lessons learned, when evaluating current and future military projects.

The Comanche has cost taxpayers about $8 billion to date. The program has been plagued with cost overruns, time delays and overzealous desire of Pentagon planners to move forward with parts of the program before they are technologically proven to work. In our opinion, the elimination of this program is far overdue. So much criticism has been leveled at this program and so many reams of paper have been used to enumerate its drawbacks, it’s unbelievable the Comanche has survived this long. For too many years, taxpayer money has been chopped to ribbons by the gold-plated rotors of this over priced boondoggle.

The Comanche is just the latest in a disturbing line of failures in U.S. weapon acquisition programs. As Pentagon officials get caught up in utilizing untested technologies and building flashier weapons of war, they are failing to identify and meet the basic needs of our soldiers. In other words, the Pentagon could make do with some quality sedans, but they insist on expensive Rolls Royce models that often turn out to be lemons. The debate on eliminating the Comanche now moves to Congress and is likely to be as popular as a pair of lead gym shoes. Despite record deficits, and given Congress reluctance to make tough budget cuts, especially for defense, they will likely restore funding to this overpriced, obsolete and irrelevant program.

For more information, please contact us.