This is Obscene

I find this incredible. It leaves me speechless. Hat tip to Paul Vebber. From page 12 of this report (PDF).

The Joint Strike Fighter is driving much of DOD’s poor portfolio performance and it will continue to drive outcomes for the foreseeable future. Among the 96 programs in DOD’s 2011 portfolio, the Joint Strike Fighter is the costliest, the poorest performer in terms of cost growth, and the program with the largest remaining funding needs. The Joint Strike Fighter accounts for 21 percent, or nearly $327 billion, of the planned total acquisition cost of the portfolio. It is also responsible for the most significant research and development, procurement, and total acquisition cost growth in the past year, as shown in figure 1. This growth took place without any change in procurement quantities by the program.

Most of the remaining funding for the 2011 portfolio is for procurement. Over 91 percent of the almost $705 billion needed to complete the programs in the 2011 portfolio consists of procurement funding; therefore, any future funding cuts to these programs will likely result in quantity reductions. The Joint Strike Fighter program alone is expected to account for 38 percent—or almost $246 billion—of the future procurement funding needed. This amount is enough to fund the remaining procurement costs of the next 15 largest programs.
The graphic is on page 14 of the same report (click for larger). You are reading that correctly, the Joint Strike Fighter is 38% of all DoD procurement for all current defense programs.

Joint Strike Fighter is not too big to fail, it's way too big to ever possibly succeed.
ID