DEFENSE WINS CHAMPIONSHIPS, BUT ALSO COSTS TAXPAYERS BILLIONS: HOW ADDITIONS TO THE NUNN-MCCURDY ACT CAN TRANSFORM IT FROM A MERE REPORTING REQUIREMENT TO AN EFFECTIVE COST CONTROL MECHANISM.

The Nunn-McCurdy Act, first introduced in 1982 and then made permanent law in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1983, was established to provide visibility into the cost overruns associated with defense acquisition programs. The Nunn-McCurdy Act has different requirements for defense acquisition programs that breach certain cost growth thresholds, with the most significant breach requiring termination of the program unless certified by the Secretary of Defense. Given this, the Act essentially requires the Department of Defense to report programs that breach certain cost thresholds to Congress but does nothing to actually prevent the cost overruns from happening again. This Note suggests amending the Nunn-McCurdy Act to add language that makes a program that has experienced three breaches subject to Congressional review, eliminating the possibility for the Secretary of Defense to simply certify the program again. Additionally, this Note suggests providing Congress with the option to assess a penalty on the Department of Defense's appropriations for the following fiscal year relative to the number of programs that experience multiple breaches. Finally, this Note suggests providing various termination methods that seek to receive some return on investment before a program is terminated completely [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]