Thursday, July 28, 2011

DoD Spends Spends Trillions On Waste

Remember the trillions that disappeared? We'll here's more - (Posted for those that think we have to Increase Military SPENDING!!!)
$644.75 for a small gear smaller than a dime that sells for $12.51: more than a 5,100 percent increase in price. $1,678.61 for another tiny part, also smaller than a dime, that could have been bought within DoD for $7.71: a 21,000 percent increase. $71.01 for a straight, thin metal pin that DoD had on hand, unused by the tens of thousands, for 4 cents: an increase of over 177,000 percent.

Taxpayers were massively overcharged in dozens of transactions between the Army and Boeing for helicopter spare parts, according to a full, unredacted Department of Defense Office of Inspector General (DoD OIG) audit that POGO is making public for the first time. The overcharges range from 33.3 percent to 177,475 percent for mundane parts, resulting in millions of dollars in overspending.
The Real Effect
See what happens when we dig? We come away with complete garbage expenditures. I would imagine the thinking goes something like this -
Gee, this Defense contractor builds important stuff for our military, so if they just so happen to get paid a little more, it's ok.
This leads to -
These are good jobs and vital for the national economy.
Which leads to -
Well, we know they're taking most of the money, but what would we do without them?
This is the place that we find ourselves in today. All of these expenditures become necessary. Much like a household budget run wild, the only place for this craziness to go now is for these necessary expenditures to begin canabilizing each other. Look for feuds to build as contractor conflicts with contractor who conflicts with healthcare who conflicts with.........

This is exactly why the first thing I always ask someone with big eyes 'How are you going to pay for that?' Resolve that issue specifically and the rest takes care of itself.

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