CBO Report: U.S. Nuclear Arsenal Cost Spikes 72 Percent Over Next Decade

[bananas]

http://www.nationaljournal.com/global-security-newswire/cbo-report-u-s-nuclear-arsenal-cost-spikes-72-percent-over-next-decade-20131223

CBO Report: U.S. Nuclear Arsenal Cost Spikes 72 Percent Over Next Decade
By Global Security Newswire Staff, December 23, 2013

Current U.S. plans for maintaining and modernizing the nuclear arsenal are projected to cost taxpayers roughly $355 billion in the next 10 years, Reuters reports.

That figure -- produced by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in a Friday report -- constitutes a 72 percent cost spike, by some estimates. The new price tag is nearly $150 billion more than the $208.5 billion estimate the Obama administration provided to Congress in a 2012 report, according to one arms-control advocacy organization.

The United States is still in the planning stages for much of its program to replace retiring nuclear-delivery vehicles, build new fissile-material laboratories and overhaul aging warheads. Expectations are that nuclear-arsenal spending will substantially ramp-up after 2023.

Obama administration modernization plans for strategic and nonstrategic weapon delivery systems include new long-range bombers and ballistic missile-submarines, which are projected to total approximately $136 billion through 2023, according to the 25-page CBO analysis.

Energy Department plans for retrofitting warheads, building new naval reactors and constructing new fissile-material laboratories are estimated to cost $105 billion. An additional $56 billion could be spent on command-and-control technology. The CBO report also accounts for $59 billion in anticipated cost growth.

"The impending nuclear-modernization tidal wave will force increasingly difficult trade-offs between nuclear and conventional capabilities," Kingston Reif, nuclear nonproliferation director at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, projected.

[Xipe Totec]

1. If you think inflation is bad, big bang is worse.

Got to feed the military-industrial complex.

[truedelphi]

2. So relieved to know that while the Obama administration backed away

From idea of loaning the states those monies needed to keep schools intact, roads resurfaced, bridges reconstructed, etc, he did feel it is important to make sure we Americans can still kill off every human on earth eight times over.

[bossy22]

3. Thank you Bush and Clinton

Another wonderful side-effect of our short-sighted procurement holiday of the 90's and earlier 2000's. Obama has to clean up the mess now