His business provided jobs in Dorsey’s district, and jobs were scarce. Pitcairn was delighted when Dorsey introduced a bill to provide $2 million to the War Department to buy Autogiros for Army research and testing…
The head of research and development for the War Department, Army Major E.N. Harmon, had two objections to Dorsey’s bill.
First, his department disliked Congress earmarking money for special projects (a habit House and Senate members would never break).
Secondly, the Army had bought three Autogiros already and “the results have been unfortunate.”
That was from Richard Whittle’s excellent book The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey.
The story was from 1938. It sounds astounding to modern ears. Congress did not earmark money for special projects. Pitcairn was a bit of a political entrepreneur by convincing his representative to get a project funded that funneled money back to his own district.
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| Pitcairn autogyro NC-12681 at St. Hubert, Quebec. Aug. 19, 1932 |
Back then, the Army and Navy were funded according to organization and object. Project earmarking only started becoming routine with the implementation of the program budget in 1949 (and really not until the rise of the PPBS in 1961).
I often say that the budget should be the most important aspect of defense reform, not the acquisition or requirements processes.
By the way, the French parliament doesn’t earmark defense funding. There’s actually quite a bit to learn from the French experience.
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