Potential R&D savings from the Defense budget

New York Times Op-Chart The Pentagon’s Biggest Boondoggles has thoughts on cutting defense R&D costs (and quite a bit of historical data).  It also mentions the GAO study that we had discussed in an earlier post:

Listed below is just a sampling of what systems could be ended without endangering America; indeed, abandoning some of them might actually enhance national security. These cuts would generate only small savings initially — perhaps just several billion this fiscal year, as contracts would have to be wound down. But savings would swiftly rise to more than $50 billion annually thereafter.