Cost Overrun Quotes

First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?

Cheops' Law: Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.

We finally found out the technique of separating and getting information about where every train would be at any moment. Of course, I went over budget many times, because - as you go along - some things improved, and you get better ideas.

Law Number XXIV: The only thing more costly than stretching the schedule of an established project is accelerating it, which is itself the most costly action known to man.

We buy products for our military and they come in at costs that are so far above what they were supposed to be, because we don't have people that know what they're doing.

All public projects are mausoleums, not always in shapes, but always in cost.

It's curious that only in Washington can you spend $2 billion and claim that you're saving money.

Most website developers say an aggregator website, such as what healthcare.gov is, could be built easily for a half a million dollars. They have spent a half a billion dollars.

I guess HBO did a giant 'War in the Pacific' mini-series that cost, like, a fortune, and there was a little moment where they literally had no money. And even though the show had become kind of a cult hit, there was an issue of whether they could actually afford to do it.

After announcing that the Stealth bomber would overrun by 16%, and would cost over half a billion:] Whatever it costs, it's worth it.

When I build something for somebody, I always add $50 million or $60 million onto the price. My guys come in, they say it's going to cost $75 million. I say it's going to cost $125 million, and I build it for $100 million. Basically, I did a lousy job. But they think I did a great job.

Each proposed B-2 stealth bomber costs three times more than it would if every part of the plane were made from solid gold. The cost is $2.3 billion each.

To defend Western Europe we have to let the Pentagon buy all these tanks and guns and things, and the Pentagon is unable to buy any object that that costs less than a condominium in Vail. If the Pentagon needs, say, fruit, it will argue that it must have fruit that can withstand the rigors of combat conditions, and it will wind up purchasing the FX-700 Seedless Tactical Grape, which will cost $160,000 per bunch, and will have an 83 percent failure rate.

Sometimes little things can prolong an experience in a way that you run over budget. It's very scientific; a lot of people don't understand the science that goes behind making a film.

As a scientist in charge of space sensors and entire space missions before I was at NASA, I myself was involved in projects that overran. But that's no excuse for remaining silent about this growing problem or failing to champion reform.

I think that they hoped the private sector would come in. And the private sector tried to come in until they saw the size of the problem. I mean, from were people on that weekend that thought they'd had a solution. And then the hole kept getting bigger and bigger. And all of a sudden became apparent that 20 billion wouldn't do it and 30 billion wouldn't do it and 40 billion wouldn't do it. So it got beyond anybody's ability to certainly to do it in a short period of time.

The cost overrun [for the C-5A] here is so much smaller as a percentage of what we expected it to be when we let the contract, that it is a great improvement.

Like building a house, travel always costs more than you estimate.

We build roads and they cost two and three and four times what they're supposed to cost.

The bigger the budget, the more trouble there is.

An expert is the one who predicts the job will take the longest and cost the most.

Law Number XV: The last 10 percent of performance generates one-third of the cost and two-thirds of the problems.

History has repeatedly shown that the costs of many government healthcare programs far exceed early projections.

The bond company comes in if you exceed your costs; they're the insurers of the film. In the worst-case scenario, they take over the production.

History is rife with stories of directors who got so obsessed that their films went massively over budget - out of control.