Twenty-four programs that were canceled, missed their goal or measured their losses
| Program | Years | Cost ($bn, as reported) | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canceled or written off | ||||
| Afghanistan reconstruction | 2002–2021 | 148 | $148B appropriated, about 60% for Afghan security forces that dissolved in August 2021; SIGAR identified $26–29B lost to waste, fraud and abuse and $7.1B of equipment left behind. | SIGAR, final report (December 2025), as reported by Defense One |
| California high-speed rail | 2009– | 4 | The $4B federal grant was terminated in July 2025 after the FRA found it could not deliver its early operating segment by 2033; estimated cost rose from $33B (2008) to $89–128B; 171 miles under construction in the Central Valley, no train running. | ABC7 / Associated Press, July 17, 2025 |
| Constellation-class frigate | 2020–2025 | 3 | Twenty ships planned on a proven Italian design; redesigned until, in GAO’s words, the frigate “now bears little resemblance to the parent design”, three years late and overweight. Canceled November 2025 with two hulls half-built; $3B remains to finish them and settle the yard. | Defense News, November 26, 2025 |
| Superconducting Super Collider | 1989–1993 | 1.57 | Terminated by Congress on October 28, 1993, after about $1.57B was spent, when the projected cost had risen from $5.9B (1989) to between $11B and $13B. | DOE Office of Inspector General, DOE/IG-0389 (April 1996) |
| Iraq reconstruction | 2003–2012 | The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction’s final report (2013) counted $60B spent; many projects were never completed or were abandoned by the Iraqi government. | SIGIR, Learning From Iraq (March 2013) | |
| Army Future Combat Systems | 2003–2009 | A networked family of manned and unmanned vehicles; about $18B spent with no vehicle fielded. | GAO, Defense Acquisitions: Assessments of Selected Weapon Programs (GAO-09-326SP) | |
| Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle | 1996–2011 | Marine Corps amphibious vehicle; some $3B spent in development. | GAO, Defense Acquisitions: Assessments of Selected Weapon Programs (GAO-09-326SP) | |
| Yucca Mountain repository | 1987–2010 | About $15B spent studying and licensing the nation’s nuclear-waste repository before the administration withdrew the license application in 2010. | GAO-11-229 (April 2011) | |
| MOX fuel fabrication facility | 2007–2018 | Built at the Savannah River Site to dispose of surplus weapons-grade plutonium; construction began in FY2007 at an estimated $4.8B; by FY2016 the estimate was about $17.2B, with operations as late as 2048. NNSA terminated the contract in October 2018. | DOE Office of Inspector General, DOE-OIG-20-16 (December 2019) | |
| Solyndra loan guarantee | 2009–2011 | A $535M Energy Department loan guarantee to a solar-panel maker that went bankrupt in 2011. The loan program as a whole has since returned more in interest than it lost, which is the counter-case. | DOE, Energy Dominance Financing portfolio performance; GAO-15-438 | |
| Missed the goal | ||||
| F-35 Joint Strike Fighter | 2001– | 2,000 | Lifetime cost over $2 trillion; $1.6 trillion of it sustainment. GAO (June 2026): mission-capable rate fell from 67% to 44% between FY2021 and FY2025, full-mission-capable from 38% to 25%, with incentive fees paid “for performance that did not align with service requirements”. | GAO-26-108113 (June 11, 2026); GAO-24-106703 (April 2024) |
| VA electronic health record | 2018– | 48 | Estimated at $10B over ten years in 2018; VA’s own estimate is now about $48B ($37B to deploy through 2031 plus $11B to sustain); it went live at 11 sites in 2026. GAO: 4 of 18 recommendations implemented. | Military Times, September 3, 2026 |
| Zumwalt-class destroyer | 1998– | 23.1 | Up to thirty-two ships planned, three built; the guns they were built around were never supplied with ammunition after the round’s projected price reached at least $800,000. | CRS, RL32109 (December 5, 2025) |
| Healthcare.gov launch | 2010–2014 | 0.8 | The federal insurance marketplace failed on launch in October 2013 and was rebuilt within months; HHS’s Inspector General found 60 contracts with an original estimated value of $1.7B; nearly $800M obligated and nearly $500M paid by February 2014. | HHS OIG, OEI-03-14-00230 (January 2015) and OEI-03-14-00231 (August 2014) |
| 2010 Census handheld computers | 2006–2008 | 0.596 | Handhelds built to replace paper for the door-to-door count failed in testing; the Census Bureau reverted to paper for the follow-up in 2008. The contract was awarded at up to $596M; by June 2008 the contractor estimated about $1.3B and the government’s independent estimate was about $726M (GAO). | GAO-08-550T (March 2008); GAO-08-886T (June 2008) |
| Littoral Combat Ship | 2005– | 35 ships procured through FY2019 (CRS); USS Fort Worth was decommissioned in July 2026 after nearly fourteen years of service. | CRS, RL33741 (December 17, 2019); The Defense Post, July 31, 2026 | |
| Pentagon financial audit | 2018–2025 | Eight consecutive failed audits of $4.65 trillion in assets; 26 material weaknesses in FY2025; the only one of 24 major agencies never to pass. Target for a clean opinion: 2028. | Defense News, December 19, 2025 | |
| NASA Constellation and SLS | 2005– | Constellation was canceled in 2010 after about $9B; its successor, the Space Launch System, has a cost NASA’s Inspector General puts above $4B a launch. | NASA OIG, NASA’s Management of the Artemis Missions (IG-22-003, November 2021) | |
| Job Corps | 1964– | Residential job training. The Labor Department’s 2025 transparency report: 38.6% graduation rate, $80,285 per student per year, $155,601 per graduate, $16,695 average post-program earnings. DOL paused the centers in May 2025. | DOL news releases, April 25, 2025 (transparency report) and May 29, 2025 (pause) | |
| Head Start | 1965– | HHS’s own randomized Head Start Impact Study (2010, 2012) found the cognitive gains of the program year had faded by third grade; FY2025 improper payments $1.2B. Defenders cite long-run health and attainment effects in other studies. | HHS/ACF, OPRE Report 2012-45 (December 2012); PaymentAccuracy.gov, FY2025 | |
| Measured losses | ||||
| PPP and EIDL loans | 2020–2022 | 200 | The SBA Inspector General identified $200B in potentially fraudulent loans and grants out of $1.2T disbursed — 8% of PPP and 33% of EIDL; by June 2023, $399M had been seized or forfeited, $509M ordered in restitution, and nearly $30B of EIDL funds seized or returned. | SBA OIG, Report 23-09 (June 27, 2023) |
| Pandemic unemployment insurance | 2020–2023 | 100–135 | GAO estimates $100–135B of pandemic unemployment benefits was paid to fraud — 11–15%; the FY2021 improper-payment estimate for UI alone was $78.1B. | GAO-23-106696 (September 2023); PaymentAccuracy.gov |
| Medicare Advantage | 2006– | 76 | MedPAC (March 2026): Medicare pays plans about 14% more than the same beneficiaries would cost in traditional Medicare — $76B in 2026, from favorable selection (11%) and coding intensity (4%). Separately: $23.7B of improper payments in FY2025. | MedPAC, March 2026; PaymentAccuracy.gov, FY2025 |
| Shuttered Venue Operators Grant | 2021–2022 | 10.1 | The highest improper-payment rate among FY2025 estimates: 68.9% of the program’s payments, $10.1B. | PaymentAccuracy.gov, FY2025 dataset |
Source. Inspector-general, GAO, CRS and agency findings and press reports, cited row by row; the firm’s own selection. SIGIR’s final report (Iraq), the Labor Department’s releases (Job Corps) and GAO-15-438 (Solyndra) could not be retrieved.
Method and data
Method. The program list is editorial. Selection favored cases with an inspector-general, GAO or CBO finding and a stated cost; the costs are not comparable and are not summed. Each cost is as its cited source states it: appropriations (Afghanistan); the federal grant terminated (California rail); the remaining cost to finish and settle (Constellation); spending at termination (Super Collider); procurement of the three ships ($9,450.8M and $4,342.4M) plus about $9.3B of research and development (Zumwalt, CRS); lifetime cost (F-35); VA’s own estimate to deploy and sustain (VA record); the not-to-exceed value at award (Census handhelds; the contractor’s June 2008 estimate was about $1.3B against MITRE’s independent $726M); obligations to February 2014 (Healthcare.gov); potentially fraudulent loans and grants (PPP and EIDL); GAO’s estimated range of fraud (pandemic unemployment insurance); MedPAC’s 2026 estimate of payments above traditional Medicare (Medicare Advantage); the FY2025 improper-payment estimate (Shuttered Venue grants). A blank cost is one the cited source does not state: the Pentagon audit’s $4.65 trillion is assets audited, not a cost; GAO-11-229’s $15.4 billion for Yucca Mountain is liabilities; and the older cases’ costs in the text (Iraq, Future Combat Systems, the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, Yucca Mountain’s $15B spent, NASA Constellation, Solyndra) were not confirmed in a retrieved source (October 5, 2026). The F-35 and the Pentagon audit are included as the largest instances of a program and an institution not meeting a stated standard, not as “failed” weapons or a failed department. The counter-case is given where one exists (Solyndra’s loan portfolio, Head Start’s long-run studies). Rows are grouped by category and ranked by cost within each.
Download CSV. Data and chart licensed CC BY 4.0.
Higgins Strategy. “Twenty-four programs that were canceled, missed their goal or measured their losses” Exhibit 13, The Debt, the Waste and the Tax (Study X). October 12, 2026. https://higginsstrategy.com/charts/10-08-failed-programmes/