Pentagon Spent $5 Billion For Weapons On Day Before Shutdown

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.'"

Do I even want to know?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Aside from it being incrementally more legal than just handing the money directly to the manufacturer, why would the US be helping France pay for MQ-9s? Is there any way in which this isn't a pure handout to General Atomics, essentially Uncle Sam offering a manufacturer's rebate on their behalf?

This isn't news; this is Fed end of year

[Xaedalus]

This article is pointless--the Federal fiscal year ended on September 30th. Of COURSE the Pentagon's going to spend money like crazy--just about every purchasing department in the Federal Government waits until the very last day to fill out their orders. Doing so allows them to negotiate for better deals to benefit us taxpayers, or allows them to be told how much they've got to spend. This is not a surprise, folks. It's just timing, that's all.

Re:NOT News For Nerds

[RichMan]

a) nerds also follow politics
b) a lot of nerds are employed from defense department money

Re:Hey guys, seriously.

[phantomfive]

Stop whining for money.
Stop envying money.
Stop money.
It will be cool.

I did that.
I got hungry.
So I found a job.
It wasn't cool but better than hungry.

Re:NOT News For Nerds

[tgd]

This is a pure politics story. Why the fuck is this on slashdot? Its not news for nerds and not stuff that matters to anybody but political junkies.

No, its not even politics. Its just business.

Its *normal* for most companies to deal with contracts at the end of the quarter. Its especially normal for the end of the fiscal year. Budgets ended that day, so there's a desire by both the bean counters in the DoD and the companies they're buying things from to get the contracts signed before the end of the fiscal year.

Anyone who thinks this is some big conspiracy or shocking is staggeringly ignorant of the real world and likely has either never had a job or had a job so low they never were exposed to things like fiscal years and end-of-quarter.

Why do you think damn near every finance and sales person was chained to their desk until late on Monday evening? Because *every* business works that way.

There is no real shutdown

[SuperKendall]

The government continues to spend money on whatever it wants.

The government, after the shutdown, spent money to rent barricades to close off national monuments that are normally open 24x7 with no means of closing access.

They also spent money and time to turn off things like the "Panda Cam" that they could have just kept on until it failed.

Any actual layoffs or closures are wholly there to annoy you and make you think you need government more than you do.

Reject closures and go where you like. It's your land.

This isn't unique to govt.

[sirwired]

Pretty much any large organization with annual budgets burns through any remaining money before the fiscal year runs out. The reasoning is simple: if you don't spend every penny, budget planners inevitably use that as evidence you didn't need the money and will give you less the next year, even if you then turn out to need it.

In addition, there may be special projects the authorization for which expires at the end of the fiscal year.

Lastly, the people selling the stuff have targets of their own to meet and will often give special deals if you close the deal before the end of their fiscal year.

Re:NOT News For Nerds

[omnichad]

This falls under "stuff that matters." And if I was going to read or participate in a discussion on this sort of thing, I'd rather be surrounded by Slashdot types.

Re:NOT News For Nerds

[Anonymous Coward]

This falls under "stuff that matters."

That's pretty much the same thing as the NSA using "National Security" to justify data gathering, and Congress using "Interstate Commerce" to justify intrusions into State affairs.
In other words, that's a BS catch-all excuse.

If I want to see a bunch of political drivel about "Government agency X spent $Y during the Shutdown" I could sign up with Facebook or turn on the TV.
What is it, specifically about THIS story, that makes it "matter" any more than any of the other "Why can they spend on X buy not Y" stories out there? This isn't news, it's not new, it's nothing more than someone pissing and moaning politics.