The Government's Gadget Habit

sanzibar writes "The Federal procurement database reveals millions of dollars are being spent on gadgets. Over the past 10 years, the US government has spent $117 million on BlackBerries (including service plans), almost $18 million on iOS devices, about $1 million on PS3s, over $500k on Xboxes, and somehow, $12k on Zunes."

Comments

the government is kind of large

[Osgeld]

sure ps3's and xboxes sound silly for congress or the DOJ but it could be going to our troops, like that ps3 supercomputer ... but TFA is obviously out to state an agenda, so nothing to see here unless you want some rant by what seems like a child

Re:the government is kind of large

[Ephemeriis]

sure ps3's and xboxes sound silly for congress or the DOJ but it could be going to our troops, like that ps3 supercomputer ... but TFA is obviously out to state an agenda, so nothing to see here unless you want some rant by what seems like a child

Even if they aren't going into a cluster/supercomputer, I'm not sure that I have a problem with it. Sure, maybe our congresscritters can just go home and play on their own console system... But folks who've been deployed don't really have that option. And I'm certainly not going to begrudge the soldiers who are keeping me safe the cost of a few game systems.

kudos

[yagu]

If you compare that money against the total government expenditures, I'd guess percentage-wise they're spending far less on gadgets from their budget than the average consumer. Maybe we should be congratulating them.

Of course, there may be buried beneath all the other expenditures many gadgets that don't show up as itemized and measurable.

So?

[bmo]

Those figures are over 10 years?

That's not even real money.

Get back to me when we're not spending billions on wars each month that we're losing in the long run.

Get back to me when there is an accounting for the 6 - some odd billion in *cash* we shipped off to Iraq (or was it Afghanistan? Who cares, same thing) that simply disappeared down the rat hole through simple theft.

--
BMO

Re:Of course they're buying Zunes

[langelgjm]

Actually the Zunes are backhanded gifts for our diplomats to hand out when they want to insult another country's leaders. Kind of like buying someone a really ugly sweater.

Re:Thats all?

[Rob the Bold]

Over 10 years that really isn't a whole lot, especially when you're talking about the government. I think many corporations end up spending more on the BB phones/plans ALONE than the gov spent on all of that, and considering that many of those PS3s/xboxes/zunes/iOS devices probably went to the military to entertain deployed troops (or in iOS case, to be used functionally in the field) I don't really consider those bad investments.

Let's just do that math. Looks like federal spending over that time period was a little under $30 Trillion (give or take 3 or 4 trillion). So Blackberry expenditures would be about 4 millionths of total federal spending. Let's see, what do I spend about 4 millionths of my money on? If I somehow spend $100,000 annually, that's 40 cents a year. That doesn't even get me a payphone call -- provided I could find one.

I guess I should put that in the same frame as the summary: $4 over ten years. That's a few orders of magnitude lower than my "gadget" spending.