Defense Contracting: The Pentagon’s Obamacare (from The National Interest)

The 115^th Congress is now in session and the first order of business for the Republican majority is to repeal Obamacare. President-elect Trump campaigned on the slogan of repealing and replacing Obamacare. This was part of his general theme of making government more efficient and responsive to the needs of the people. Since winning the November election, Mr. Trump has taken this same theme and applied it to other areas of government, notably defense. In several tweets, he questioned the costs of major defense programs. In some interesting ways, Obamacare and defense contracting are similar. It is these common features that are at the heart of the challenges to costs and effectiveness faced by both. I provide several examples here.