Maxim Lott has a short, excellent piece on the cost overrun for the almost-$13 billion (yikes!) aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford. Of course, I’m biased, because he quoted me and used the two best quotes I gave him.

Here’s the excerpt quoting me:

“No matter how hi-tech or how glamorous, a carrier is vulnerable to a well-placed missile,” said David Henderson, an economist at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. “Pfft — Oops, there goes a $12 billion carrier.”

He added that he wasn’t surprised at the price tag.

“It should not be surprising,” he said. “This is, after all, the government spending other people’s money.”

One quote that Maxim didn’t use is that we don’t really need that many carriers if the U.S. government stops intervening in all those countries. That would have countered the argument that Cordesmann makes.