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WorldsGreatestPoop t1_j9xxnkh wrote

I’m sure there’s a significant amount of sunk cost built in these numbers. The systems being used would still be costing money while idle. Missiles don’t get replaced by the single missile used. If the whole budget needs to be reworked because new balloons need to be shot at regularly that’s one thing; but a single event isn’t going to register on the bottom line.

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pbmadman t1_j9zqngv wrote

This is how it worked when I was in the military. We had an annual requirement to train anyways and any time we did something like this (we sunk an abandoned fishing vessel) we counted it as training. So sure, it seemed expensive when analyzed the way this post did it, but that money was already allocated and spent and not doing it wasn’t going to save money.

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Malohdek t1_ja22i5l wrote

This is an inherent flaw of government. Though I understand why.

It's like when you budget for food, you're not going to spend $80 when you gave yourself $100 unless you've got the presence of mind to ration the food you spent $80 on instead of being comfortable with $100 of food.

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pbmadman t1_ja2vzkx wrote

I’m not sure I quite understand your point, but what I do understand seems like the exact opposite of my experience.

We were required to fire a certain number of rounds through the gun I worked on to satisfy our training requirements. Let’s say it was 100/year.

We planned to fire 20 per quarter in the first 3 quarters of the year and then the remaining 40 as close to the end of the year as possible.

That way if we actually needed to use the gun for something “real” we were less likely to go over the allotted amount.

In fact, in all the budgets we had, never going over was hugely important. So was never being under which is maybe what you are referencing. In all of our budgets we would always pinch every possible penny for the first 3 quarters and then make sure to spend exactly 100% of the budget in the last few months of the year.

But this phenomenon isn’t exactly unique to government.

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