Pentagon Spent $5 Billion For Weapons On Day Before Shutdown 286
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "John Reed at Foreign Policy reports that the Pentagon awarded 94 contracts Monday evening on its annual end-of-the-fiscal-year spending spree, spending more than five billion dollars on everything from robot submarines to Finnish hand grenades and a radar base mounted on an offshore oil platform. To put things in perspective, the Pentagon gave out only 14 contracts on September 3, the first workday of the month. Some of the more interesting purchases from Monday's dollar-dump include the $2.5 billion award the Defense Logistics Agency gave to aircraft engine-maker Pratt & Whitney for 'various weapons system spare parts' used by the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, $65 million for military helmets from BAE Systems, $24 million for 'traveling wave tubes' to amplify radio signals from Thales, $17 million for liquid nitrogen, $15 million for helium and $19 million on cots. The Air Force, traditionally DOD's biggest spender, was relatively restrained; it dished out only 17 contracts including $49 million to help France buy 16 MQ-9 Reaper drones, $64 million to Lockheed for help operating spy satellites that are equipped with infrared cameras, and $9 million to URS Corp. for maintenance work on the Air National Guard's fleet of RC-26B spyplanes that help domestic law enforcement agencies catch drug dealers. The air service also spent $9 million on a new gym at the Air Force Academy that includes areas for CrossFit training, space for the academy's Triathlon Club and a 'television studio.' It just goes to show, says Reed, that 'even when the federal government is shutdown and the military has temporarily lost half its civilian workforce, the Pentagon can spend money like almost no one else.'"
Re:This isn't news; this is Fed end of year (Score:5, Informative)
"even when the federal government is shutdown and the military has temporarily lost half its civilian workforce, the Pentagon can spend money like almost no one else."
The government hadn't yet been shut down. They military hadn't yet lost "half its civilian workforce".
This is normal end-of-fiscal-year activity. There is a lot of money that is allocated on contingency. Agencies don't always spend everything they were given. They don't know until late in September how much they haven't spent out of the allocated amounts, so they can't spend the rest until late September.
Now, if you got rid of congress saying "you didn't spend all we gave you last year so we're going to give you less this year", you'd go a long way towards ending the end of year spending spree. You wouldn't completely end it because, of course, they have to give the leftover money back. If you got rid of that, too, the spree would be much smaller, if it happens at all.
But why ARE we paying for France to buy drones?
Re:This isn't news; this is Fed end of year (Score:3, Informative)
I was thinking along the same lines. It's the end of the year. It is their money - it was budgeted for them. You spend it or loose it, just like in any other department in any other company in the world.
"Oh, no, they spent money budgeted for them! This is awful!"
Buying helmets for soldiers? Sounds like a good buy (although isn't BAE British? Oh well, still an alley). $9 million on a gym at an Air Force Academy? Sounds like a reasonable price amount and a reasonable purchase. $64 million to Lockheed which employees hundreds of thousands of civilians? Good for them keeping Americans working. Several million on liquid nitrogen and helium for scientific research and use in various areas? $2.5 billion to another civilian contractor for spare parts to maintain weapon systems, basically keeping weapons in working order and keeping tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands employed?
Stupid stupid article.
Re:NOT News For Nerds (Score:5, Informative)
I work for a telecommunications systems company, specifically serving government/military channels.
Over the 3 days leading up to 9/30, the volume of contract awards that came through was more than double that of the last 2 months. In the end it was still about 40% less than this time last year.
They delay some purchases until the end of the year so they can be sure their budget doesn't run out in the middle of the year. When we get to the end of the year, they pull the trigger on the purchases they'd put off because they weren't sure what they have money left for. The rest are put on hiatus until next year when they get a new budget. Plus, some vendors have fiscal year-ends coinciding with the gov't, so to get bookings into the fiscal year-end and maximize year-end bonus comp., salesmen will push to provide the sharpest discounts they can manage to bring those awards into this year.
It's not surprising to see a spurt of purchases at the end of the budget year.