CBO’s Nuclear Weapons Cost Estimate Is Way Too High; Hint — Bombers

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the total cost to build America’s new nuclear forces will be $1.2 trillion over the next 30 years, adding another number to a cluttered and confusing set of estimates already circulated by the Department of Defense (DoD), independent think tanks, and CBO itself.

In particular, CBO published a report earlier this year estimating that nuclear forces would cost $400 billion over the next 10 years. What is not immediately obvious is that CBO used different methodologies in these two reports, and the differences have a significant impact on the results and how they should be interpreted.