As a tax payer, I believe the government should adequately fund the military forces, but not write blank checks. The defense industry is kept in business by our tax dollars, and they should be held accountable for keeping projects on-time, on-target, and on-budget. Some necessary scope creep and budget increases are expected, but not to the degree that we've observed. The government itself should also be held accountable for making project goals a moving target.
In private industry, if a Project Manager "forgot" to include $28 billion estimate for spare parts, what would the director or VP say to him/her? I'm not privy to classified information, but from my armchair's view, it seems that the government just writes another blank check. Worse, certain foreign government(s) simply exclude operating costs to make the sales pitch, then leave it up to someone else to magically conjure up another $10 billion later.
If the military systems ever become so excessively expensive and un-affordable, then competing nation-states should probably sit down and discuss how they can agree to disagree and start capping defense expenditures.
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