For Immediate Release	Contact: Leslie K. Paige 202-467-5334
April 10, 2013	Luke Gelber 202-467-5318

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) praised President Obama for discontinuing funding for the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS), a wasteful Department of Defense (DOD) program that the watchdog organization has long criticized.  CCAGW issued a letter to the President in February urging him to keep MEADS funding out of his budget request for fiscal year (FY) 2014. 

Intended as a replacement for the Patriot missile system, MEADS has been dogged by cost overruns of nearly $2 billion and is a decade behind schedule.  A March 9, 2010 Washington Post report quoted a U.S. Army memo asserting that the program “will not meet U.S. requirements or address the current and emerging threat without extensive and costly modifications,” and Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) has called the program “a waste of money.”  CCAGW laid out the full case against MEADS in its microsite, MisguidedMissile.org.

“The President has recognized the waste inherent in continued funding for MEADS and has prudently chosen to omit any future MEADS funding from his FY 2014 budget,” said CCAGW President Tom Schatz.  “Since three out of the four congressional defense authorization and appropriations committees have zeroed out funding for MEADS for FY 2013, the only thing standing between the taxpayers and relief from the burden of funding this wasteful defense program are the pork-barreling politicians in the Senate who may attempt to keep it limping along through an earmark.”

Barring congressional action, the $380 million in last month’s continuing resolution funding the federal for the remainder of FY 2013 will represent the final allowance for the troubled program.  According to a Pentagon spokeswoman, this funding will be used to complete the archival of data for potential later use by the three partner nations.

“The Obama Administration’s refusal to request funding for MEADS in FY 2014 represents a natural bookend to the program.  We are pleased that our own recommendation to terminate MEADS was agreed to by the President.  Members of Congress, who might be tempted to ignore the writing on the wall, should follow the president’s lead.  The country is facing a deep fiscal morass; it is time for them to stand down on MEADS,” Schatz concluded. 

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.