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.'"

Comments

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?

Re:Do I even want to know?

[geekoid]

Because France is one of our allies(out oldest ally), and sometime allies negotiate deals.

This is simply what the military need to run. Instead of spread out over a year.

Re:Do I even want to know?

[Anonymous Coward]

Foreign Military Sales contracts use the US DoD as the middleman -- the DoD purchases the hardware from the manufacturer and then resells it to the foreign military.

Re:Do I even want to know?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because France is one of our allies(out oldest ally), and sometime allies negotiate deals.

If it wasn't for the French during the revolutionary war, we would all be speaking english right now.

Re:Do I even want to know?

[bobbied]

It's fun to project what would have happened had the French not decided to poke a stick into the king of England's eye. Somehow, I don't think we'd still be colonies of Britain, but exactly *what* we would be had the likes of Franklin and Washington had been killed for treason and not been available to craft our constitution is hard to imagine.

Re:Do I even want to know?

[JWSmythe]

There's a good bit of bartering that happens with these "sales".

The DSCA proposal of sale from June 2013

Another article from June 2013 regarding the sale, with an important quote.

"France requests these capabilities to provide for the defense of its deployed troops, regional security and interoperability with the U.S,"

Here is more on what was purchased.

So.. We sold them to France, so they can operate them. The intention is that they will cooperate with the US. So if we want "surveillance" of a target, and France has one that's closer, we can use their intel. There's nothing unusual about that. It's similar to ICBM early warning systems that were "sold" during the cold war. Sure, they were being operated in another country, but we still used the intel from them.

Re:Do I even want to know?

[TheSeatOfMyPants]

Or the corporate/anti-assistance & warhawk politicians here in America would've just joined forces with their less-extreme UK counterparts to bugger up the British-American government and continue "colonizing" other countries by force.

Re:Do I even want to know?

[timeOday]

Canada seems like a fairly close case for comparison. Australia or New Zealand too I guess.

One thing to think about is that slavery was ended throughout the British empire 30 years before the civil war. Does that mean US independence delayed freedom for American slaves? Of course there is no knowing.

Re:Do I even want to know?

[dbIII]

No. The history of all of those was directly shaped by the American Revolution and at least two out of three on independance started with a political system very heavily based upon what the USA had at that time (~1900).
It's very hard to imagine what the modern world would be like without the USA in it, and I'm somebody on the other side of the planet to the USA.

Re:Do I even want to know?

[ceoyoyo]

Canada, Australia and New Zealand all have very similar political systems. All three are also very similar to that of England.

The US has a political system that is also vaguely similar to that of England, in that it is democratic, has three branches, and a bicameral legislature.

NZ, AUS and CAN all have governments that grew out of systems in place for British rule. Some of those institutions might have been partially inspired by what the US had done, in the same way that what the US had done was inspired by revolutionary France. Or maybe the queen went directly to the source for those ideas. Certainly the governments aren't "heavily based upon what the USA had at that time." Also, none of NZ, AUS or CAN suddenly became independent. Canada, for example, could be considered independent in 1867 (which is the date we usually use), or sometime in the inter-war period in the 1900s, or in 1982 when our constitution was repatriated.

Re:Do I even want to know?

[davester666]

Probably, until they looked at the bigger picture, and realized that they could 'free' the slaves, but only temporarily. They could get most everybody to volunteer to be virtual slaves, with the idea that if they work hard enough and long enough, they won't have to anymore. And if they let just a fraction through, to 'make it', it just reinforces the idea that everybody can do it.

Except everybody can't. If everybody could, then 'making it' would be meaningless.

Re:Do I even want to know?

[dbIII]

If you consider it you will find that almost all the differences between the political systems of Canada, Australia and New Zealand compared with that of the UK are derived directly from US examples.

Re:Do I even want to know?

[bobbied]

You labor under the delusion that wealth is a fixed sized pie we all must share. I understand why folks think that way, but it really is short sighted. We can all have an improved standard of living if we realize that the wealth pie can get bigger, and while I may have less of a share of the total pie, my piece is actually bigger than it was before.

Re:Do I even want to know?

[bobbied]

Slavery was a very important issue to the US and it's founding and is often ignored. This issue is why we have two houses in congress with members elected in totally different ways. The reason why slavery lasted so long in the US was because of the grand compromise. It was trying to maintain that compromise that lead to the tearing apart of the very fabric of this country and the Civil war.

It is interesting to wonder what might have happened had things been handled in different ways. I often wonder what might have happened had the constitution not been ratified. Most folks don't know how divided the public was on ditching the articles of confederation for the "More perfect union" under the constitution and had the opposition been a bit more organized they could have prevailed. What would have happened had the south not tried to secede and the civil war never happened or if the grand compromise hadn't been struck.

Not to discount any other country's history or value, one has to acknowledge that the US was uniquely formed in a time in history which uniquely allowed it. There has been nothing like it before or since and there will never be another time when it could happen again.

Re:Do I even want to know?

[davester666]

Except prices are based on the total pie. So if your share of the total pie is smaller and smaller, which it has in the US over the past 20 years, particularly if you make less than $100,000/year now, you might have a bill with a higher number on it in your pocket, but when you go to a store to trade it in for something you need, you get something smaller now than you would 20 years ago.

Re:Do I even want to know?

[bobbied]

No.. Price is a function of supply and demand. Adding dollars to the system doesn't mean you increases wealth, it just inflates cost. So while money may be an indicator of who has more wealth (You have more than me because your bank account has a higher number in it) it is not a valid measure of wealth in total. Consider the following:

Let's say you run a country that has a GDP growth of 3%/Year and you have inflation running at 3%/year. You get a raise every year of 3%. Are you getting wealthier? Nope, your standard of living will not change (assuming your country doesn't have a progressive tax rate like most..) Not only are you not getting wealthier, the country is not creating wealth either. GDP is basically flat because while the value of the GDP is going up by 3%, but it is being measured by a shrinking ruler.

You are still claiming a fixed sized pie of wealth. I claim that idea is false, in all it's forms.

Re:Do I even want to know?

[davester666]

So, tomorrow, if everybody was issued bills with an extra zero on each one of them, you would say the pie has magically become 10 times bigger?

Just saying the pie is getting bigger every year makes for poor comfort to the people whose relative slice of the pie isn't growing at the same rate as the pie, but the things they have to buy are.

Just run a little faster, and you can catch up.
Or win the lottery, and you can get ahead.

Re:Do I even want to know?

[bobbied]

So, tomorrow, if everybody was issued bills with an extra zero on each one of them, you would say the pie has magically become 10 times bigger?

No, exactly the opposite.

The pie in your example is the same size, we are just using a ruler that is 1/10th the size and issuing pieces that are 10x the measurement we used before. My point is that you cannot use dollars (or any single currency) as a measurement of wealth because the value of dollars changes over time. So in your example overall wealth hasn't changed (the pie stayed the same size).

However, the size of the whole wealth pie DOES change over time. It can and does get bigger and smaller in real value. Many people mistakenly believe that the wealth pie is a fixed size, a misconception I'm trying to address here.

Re:Do I even want to know?

[Reziac]

Use 'value' instead of 'wealth' and see if people understand better. My car's value doesn't go up just because the price does.

Re:Do I even want to know?

[Occams]

Australia says that it has a "Washminster" system, in that its lower house is like in Westminster but its Senate house is like in Washington. It does not have a President, but a Governor General whose powers are mostly symbolic, much like the Queen. The Queen of Australia at present happens to be the same person as the Queen of England. That is a cost saving outsourcing arrangement that will be changed soon. She "reins", not rules, by the consent of the people expressed through Parliament. If the Government loses a supply bill, the GG can require a double dissolution, which is an election for all members of both houses. That is just what the USA needs right now.

Hey guys, seriously.

[eexaa]

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

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:Hey guys, seriously.

[Samantha Wright]

Given that the GP suggested the abolishment of currency, I'm pretty sure you're begging the question.

Re:Hey guys, seriously.

[DaveAtFraud]

Given that the GP suggested the abolishment of currency, I'm pretty sure you're begging the question.

But begging the question is still better than begging for food.

Cheers,
Dave

Re:Hey guys, seriously.

[Samantha Wright]

Eexaa endorsed moderation as a philosophical goal, not poverty as an immediate action. Do you not understand the concept of moderation?

Re:Hey guys, seriously.

[marcello_dl]

> Do you not understand the concept of moderation?
+1000000000 insightful

Re:Hey guys, seriously.

[phantomfive]

Well, that sounds like an interesting enough train of thought.

Let's assume that he's not suggesting we go back to the barter system, because that is essentially capitalism with additional drawbacks.

We can't go to a post-scarcity world yet where you have everything you need and want, first because we don't have enough to satisfy our desires, and secondly because we'll probably never have enough to satisfy our desires.

In practice, communes have not worked when they get too big.

Lycurgus of Sparta legendarily had a potentially workable idea, when he decreed that iron would be the same value as gold and silver, essentially making all money worthless, and followed by creating the Spartan system. The primary drawback there is it requires the people to work constantly towards a common goal (external defense and suppression of the Helots in the case of Sparta). We don't have such a common goal in America that we all work towards.

You can try the Marxist approach, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need;" a phase which ignores the distribution problem altogether, only works when people are altruistic (or shall we call them the 'new soviet women?), and then runs into problems when you have more than enough resources to supply everyone with their needs.

So what exactly is your plan to get rid of currency?

Re:Hey guys, seriously.

[knarf]

Not money entirely as the stuff does have its uses. More important is what you use it for. Use money to become independent - of money and other power factors. Buy property which can support a self-reliant life style. Don't rent or lease things you can or do not want to live without. Don't borrow money whenever possible. If you can not avoid borrowing money (eg. to buy said property) pay of the loan as soon as possible, even if others call you silly because you loose out on tax benefits from deductible loans etc. Steer away from anything which requires recurring payments where one-time acquisitions can perform the same function. Become an active member of a freecycle group, donate what you don't need anymore and try to get what you do need. Don't follow fashion, no matter in which field. Don't make yourself dependent on commercial interests, eg. avoid lock-in and planned obsolescence, choose free/open whenever possible and consider going without if the only alternative is to chain yourself to some companies business strategy. Ditch that TV if you still have one of those.

In other words throw a spanner into the works of consumerism. You are not a consumer. You are an individual. You are not there to keep the economy growing. You have no fiduciary duty towards anyone but your family and friends.

No, you won't be toting the latest gadgets the day they arrive on the market. Good for you. Neither will you wear the latest fashion in clothes. Even better for you.

Re:Hey guys, seriously.

[Samantha Wright]

You missed it, the assumption in need of proof is that it is of no merit to attempt to abolish currency and that we should just worry about the necessities of our immediate survival given the current system.

Re:Hey guys, seriously.

[khallow]

Eexaa endorsed moderation as a philosophical goal

Reminds me of something Bernard Shaw wrote:

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Moderation doesn't give you a modern society. Sure, going on various sorts of irrational binges don't either. But the accumulation of wealth has as a necessary precondition some means of acquiring that wealth. Not everyone can be a leech acquiring resources with little effort. So that leaves the means that require effort.

Re:Hey guys, seriously.

[Zeroedout]

I operate this way for the most part, and I'm sure much of Slashdot does to varying degrees. But slashdot is tiny in the grand scheme of things. I'm curious though, what would happen to a national economy if most people did this? Less consumer spending means we're down several thousand companies and even more jobs, which also means less tax revenue. Since we also have more unemployed, it also means an increased spending on social welfare programs. I'm not a fan of keeping shitty companies around, but assuming less consumer spending plays out like that, shitty companies (and the spending on them) are the less of two evils. In a capitalist economy anyway.....

I'm not sure what a different kind of economy would look like. Maybe it would be enough to do away with stock markets and traditional corporate ownership. Co-op's only, every organization is owned by those who work for it. That way there's no worrying about if an economy is doing well or not, we just have self sustaining businesses and those that aren't. No one really tracks economic performance other than how many co-ops a country has and how much they make. There's just no such thing as poor economic performance since this system doesn't have anything rely on growth. Want to start a co-op? Find others who will work with you, take out a (I suppose banks would have to be made co-ops as well - though without business stocks/ dividends to profit from, would there really be a point in central money repositories other than the government issuing currency?) loan, and get to work.

Re:Hey guys, seriously.

[Samantha Wright]

I wasn't actually suggesting I did, merely that you'd missed the point of the original comment.

But it's a fun topic to ponder, so let's see. So far all I'm really sure about is:

(a) More altruism is better for the health of a society, even if it impedes technological and resource development—not absolute altruism necessarily, just more. Rapid expansion should not be a primary goal of a civilization anyway, as it risks stability.

(b) There are a lot of obstacles to altruistic behaviour in most countries currently, which can probably be improved by the availability of services that make money (and hence competition) less essential.

(c) Altruism-vs-selfishness is a deep cultural issue and is hard to reverse, but it has been accomplished before over a timespan of decades through political action and subsequent reforms.

(d) The biggest barrier to effecting such a change is, and always will be, detraction, particularly on the part of people unwilling to give up their selfishness, such as economic libertarians, but also on the part of cynics.

Re:Hey guys, seriously.

[phantomfive]

Any statement begs the question if you dig deeply enough, including yours. That's not a problem, otherwise our writing would look like mathematical proofs, and be incredibly boring (or worse, we would all sound like lawyers).

You seem to be to go along with the Marxist idea of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need," by saying that we need to teach altruism (you're going to have to forgive my doubt that cynics and detractors are the biggest barrier to change....certainly the Soviet Union solved the problem of people openly detracting).

Let's assume you manage to spread altruism, the question remains what do you do with the excess goods? Once everyone has enough to satisfy his/her needs, how do you distribute what remains?

Re:Hey guys, seriously.

[Hognoxious]

a common goal (external defense and suppression of the Helots in the case of Sparta). We don't have such a common goal in America that we all work towards.

I'm not sure. How's that proverb about poker games and ugly girls go?

Re:Hey guys, seriously.

[dak664]

The 1930s technocracy movement outlined a society without money, thinking that it and "The Price System" inevitably lead to overconsumption and collapse. They suggested replacing it with energy chits equally distributed among the population, valid for one year to prevent debt accumulation.

http://www.technocracy.org/study-guide

Re:Hey guys, seriously.

[phantomfive]

Well that's.......interesting.

To put it charitably, when Lenin & friends started to implement Marx's ideas, they found there were a lot of details left out, which turned out to be extremely important details, and very difficult to deal with. If the technocracy movement ever gets to create their own 'New Atlantis,' they'll find that their problems only begin with their extreme loquaciousness.

Re:Hey guys, seriously.

[Samantha Wright]

I'd be wary of (a) agreeing with Marx on more than anything but the most basic notions (and even then, given that he copied a lot of garbage wholesale from Hegel, only a handful of notions are really valid) or (b) regarding the Soviet Union as an echo in any meaningful way of Marxism. In many ways the USSR was the exact opposite of what I believe needs to happen, as its power structure was completely corrupt from the beginning. (And, perhaps more to the point, it never actually achieved communism; it was really just a dysfunctional command economy.)

For what it's worth, though, a lot of these assertions can be backed up with evidence from countries with successful social welfare programs, particularly places like Denmark and Sweden. Even other English-speaking democracies like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have a better track record with corruption than the United States, and I really believe this is because of a culture that values selfishness and competition to a lesser extent.

Prior to a post-scarcity society, though, I don't really think it's possible to eliminate money entirely.

Re:Hey guys, seriously.

[DaveAtFraud]

"To enjoy the full flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks."

-- Lazarus Long (so really Robert Heinlein)

Cheers,
Dave

Re:Hey guys, seriously.

[Samantha Wright]

I don't think that really follows from the Shaw quote; all that is required to make a change is to demand one and to have ambitions for specific improvements. The pursuit of extreme wealth isn't necessary; that's like saying you need to get a high score to complete a game; depending on the method, the two objectives may not even be both completable in a single lifetime.

Re:Hey guys, seriously.

[Samantha Wright]

"Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another."

-- Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

This is otherwise known as an argument from authority. I could just as easily quote a Stoic saying Hedonists live empty, meaingless lives and accomplish nothing. But I'm not really opposed to Epicureanism as a philosophical goal, and I doubt you really hate monks all that much, so instead of citing someone else's opinion, I highly recommend you articulate your own reasoning.

Re:Hey guys, seriously.

[khallow]

The pursuit of extreme wealth isn't necessary

But it is useful. I don't think the world is worse off just because there is a lofty "end game" for people who want to be rich. Or knowledgeable/curious. Or ambitious. Or whatever.

A lot can be gained from being immoderate and going over the top with whatever it is that you want.

Re:Hey guys, seriously.

[Samantha Wright]

By moderation I don't mean being moderate in all things, only in monetary matters. Unlike the pursuit of knowledge of the universe, the accumulation of material and monetary wealth deprives others. The more extreme the wealth of one individual, the more deprivation others must suffer.

And history is full of people who realized there was nothing to stop them from enforcing a monopoly on wealth by depriving others of the opportunity to even consider its pursuit. If you're willing to impoverish others to enrich yourself, why wouldn't you take the next step and make sure it stays that way?

Re:Hey guys, seriously.

[khallow]

Unlike the pursuit of knowledge of the universe, the accumulation of material and monetary wealth deprives others.

It can, but that isn't a necessary condition even of obsessive wealth building. I think a big problem here is the conflating of people who take wealth versus those who create wealth by providing something of value.

And theft isn't inherently immoderate. For example, college campuses frequently steal small amounts from students, staff, and visitors via monopoly control of food facilities on campus.

Re:Hey guys, seriously.

[Occams]

I believe in moderation in all things, including moderation.

Re:Hey guys, seriously.

[Samantha Wright]

Still thinking about this one. Will get back to you sooner or later.

Re:Hey guys, seriously.

[Samantha Wright]

Okay. Let's examine a person who obsessively builds wealth by providing value and expecting compensation. Isn't that just ransoming your own ability? You're essentially saying "I could do all of these wonderful things for everyone, but I won't, because I believe I need recognition for my actions in the form of these many little rectangles of paper that I may or may not someday use to reward someone else for the same thing."

On its own, this is the fast road to total economic deflation; people stop exchanging goods and services because they lose the ability to, necessitating inventions like bracketed income tax and programmed inflation simply to keep the system stable. The economy may not even be growing if the products are perishables like food, and yet the scales continually tip themselves towards exhaustion. (The sole exception is when a company's employees are its entire and only customer base and the money just circulates back and forth, never growing or shrinking due to interaction with the outside world.)

I would still say that a university overcharging in its food facilities (which they inevitably seem to do) qualifies as immoderate, since the whole campaign amounts to a significant profit; it's merely distributed, as with most sophisticated forms of money-extraction, e.g. high-frequency trading.

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

[Obfuscant]

This. The last statement in the summary is just ridiculous.

"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

[Fallen Kell]

I agree with you 100%. This is standard operating practice. The different branches all have a budget for the year, but do not know what emergency needs they will have during the year. For instance, the Navy won't know they need to buy 100 more Tomahawk missiles that year because they used 100 of them in some military action. There are all kinds of incidental items which can affect the ability to make some much needed equipment upgrades or other expenditures, but due to not knowing the unknowable operational needs for the year, they can't make those purchases until almost the last few days of the fiscal year when they they pretty much know the unknowable expenses they will incur during the year (since the year is over and new unknowable expenses will not be able to occur).

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

[Demonantis]

This is what is wrong with the typical bugetting system. The money should have the biggest benefit possible. Companies do it too. People do it too.

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

[gravis777]

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

[khallow]

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

I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way. You get to pay more for the privilege of buying at the last moment.

Having said that, a lot of these deals are too big to have been negotiated in a short, rushed time frame. They probably were agreed to, months in advance and the funding broke loose in that last week. It still increases the cost of such transactions (due to factors such as charging interest for payments months delayed), but by less than the implied above route would.

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

[khallow]

This is the corporate welfare that liberals whine about, but that the conservative electorate seems completely oblivious to.

Unless it involves renewable energy or electric cars. Then the obliviousness kicks in.

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

[Capt James McCarthy]

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.

Agreed. This is always done. But this article and subsequent posting by pointing out the Pentagon may, just may, be there to give the appearance of impropriety of one party versus another. Just sayin.

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

[Sarten-X]

But why ARE we paying for France to buy drones?

Usually it's because France (or any other ally) has already paid (or at least agreed to pay) for the latest greatest military technology the US is willing to export, and they do so as a package deal. Then the US sends out the drones, the control stations, the trainers, the spare parts, the technicians... everything France needs, without France needing to run their own R&D program just to figure out what parts they need to purchase individually.

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

[Andy Dodd]

"But why ARE we paying for France to buy drones?"

Most likely (this is how FMS works) - France paid the DoD, then the DoD paid a domestic contractor.

So they're not financially helping France here - they're being a middleman and almost surely taking a cut.

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

[Samantha Wright]

Proposal: start tagging political stories with the informal fallacies they use in order to create spin. This one, for example, is a fairly clear-cut case of misleading vividness, or perhaps someone very unfamiliar with the budget jumping to conclusions.

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

[Koreantoast]

Clearly you don't understand how Foreign Military Sales (FMS) work. For a large percentage of arms deals, the DoD acts as a broker between the foreign government and the contractor. So in this case, the French gave the DoD money, and the DoD turns around and buys the drones on behalf of the French government.

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

[AK Marc]

Companies operate like this all the time. Budgets are split based on departments. Almost never do departments with separate budgets share or reallocate between themselves for the best outcome of the company. Each department is a fiefdom, and the heads fight to spend all they can and ask for more.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

How about spending money on needed things and not pissing it away for the sake of blowing the full "budget" every year. It's not their money, it's ours, the fucking mug taxpayers.

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

[bws111]

You get to pay more for the privilege of buying at the last moment.

You are sort of right, but not in the situation being discussed here. I think you are thinking of the situation where you have an urgent need for something, and require a short delivery time. For that siuation you are correct.

However, that is not the situation here. Here, the situation is you have money that is 'expiring'. In addition, your vendors are probably ending their quarters/fiscal years and want their numbers to look good. In that situation, you get a better price, because you can say to the vendor 'I have the money now, you can sell for a price I want and increase your sales for the quarter. Or, you can take your chances that I will have this money available next year.'

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

[khallow]

You are sort of right, but not in the situation being discussed here.

Again, I don't see your points at all. I am "sort of" right for this sort of situation.

In that situation, you get a better price, because you can say to the vendor 'I have the money now, you can sell for a price I want and increase your sales for the quarter. Or, you can take your chances that I will have this money available next year.'

Conversely, the vendor has a huge amount of business right now with or without that particular deal. And if that money goes back to the general budget then there's a good chance Congress will be budget cutting it next year - use it or lose it.

As a monopsopy, the US is remarkably incompetent. It doesn't do what you claim and behavior like last minute shopping is part of the symptoms of this incompetence.

And we're ignoring the various ways, legal and illegal for businesses to exploit these situations. They can bribe the people making the monetary decisions even to the point of obtaining legislation. They can just simply out-negotiate the government side, often with insider information and the ability to bamboozle the government side about the actual costs the vendor experiences.

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

[bws111]

Nope, you're entirely wrong. How do I know this? Because I have 30+ years experience in a company that sells primarily big-ticket items to F100 companies and goverments.

When it gets to the end of the quarter (or more importantly, fiscal year) you can bet the marketing team is working their asses off trying to get these deals done. There is no such thing as 'enough' revenue, more is ALWAYS better. The vendor wants to sell his product today at least as much if not moreso than the buyer needs to spend his money. Unless the vendor has more business than he can handle (very rare) the vendor will be in a mood to make deals.

The one thing you have right is this: And if that money goes back to the general budget then there's a good chance Congress will be budget cutting it next year. And the result of that budget cut is that the vendor is out a sale. So if course it is in the vendor's best interest to complete that sale NOW, while the money is available.

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

[1369IC]

This is even more true this year, when the departments were trying to save every dollar to cut the summer furlough as short as possible. If you're in the war business, you want to save some until the end of the year in case you need to, I don't know, bomb Syria just before year's end. Full disclosure: I work for one of the commands in this business.

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

[steelfood]

But why ARE we paying for France to buy drones?

Because otherwise, they'd surrender.

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

[khallow]

How do I know this? Because I have 30+ years experience in a company that sells primarily big-ticket items to F100 companies and goverments.

That experience counts if it is applicable. I don't see that. I have some experience as well and my experience runs counter to yours.

Second, marketing teams going into a feeding frenzy aren't evidence that I'm wrong. You would expect that sort of behavior for a once a year bonanza.

Third, hasty financial decisions generally hurt the less competent or experienced party in a transaction unless they're lucky or the transaction is simple enough that it doesn't need a lot of thought. The government would be that party here.

Fourth, a bundle of such rushed decisions greatly reduces the risk of public scrutiny. There is safety in numbers. For the government side, the primary incentive is that the money gets spent. How or on what is considerably less of a priority as long as it fits whatever constraints Congress and upper management have put on the transaction. The business-side has various incentives to get the best deal possible.

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

[dbIII]

That's a consequence of dumbing down management and thinking that the ones at the top can just wander around like playboy princes and every now and again issue simplistic edicts. Whatever his many other flaws, Rupert Murdoch (and others) do not behave in this way and eat companies that do act that way for breakfast.
For some reason Edsel Ford became the guy to copy and not Henry Ford. You end up with large places swarming with born to the purple inbred idiots and the horse judges they drink with. Anyone with a clue has no chance getting to the top, so is better off bailing out, starting something themselves, then selling it to an inbred idiot at an inflated price when it gets big enough. Thus you end up with the utter joke that is more than half of US management.

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

[Reziac]

I do wonder if suppliers, being savvy about this timing, raise prices just in time to benefit from it.

Re:NOT News For Nerds

[RichMan]

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

Re:NOT News For Nerds

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, we slaves don't need no knowledge, we only need moar shackles!

I thought we had ban on exporting weapons...

[gl4ss]

I thought we had ban on exporting weapons to nations in war.

Oh yeah, wars on abstract words don't count even if they include direct action.

Re:I thought we had ban on exporting weapons...

[dbIII]

There was a ban on selling weapons to Hezbolla after they killed over a hundred US Marines and a ban on selling to Iran after they took a lot of US citizens as hostage, but that didn't stop a member of the US government selling to them and later getting his photo taken wrapped up in a flag in his attempt at running for office.
Think of outright traitors like North every time Republicans make noise about how patriotic they are.

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.

Re:There is no real shutdown

[Obfuscant]

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.

Of course. You can't leave public parks and monuments open to the public when you can shut them down create more upset and use it to political advantage.

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

The NASA website is closed, too. Nothing there that was available prior to the shutdown is now available. I guess the NASA website requires constant attention from a staff of IT web professionals just to keep it up. Otherwise, let the existing content be available and just don't add new things.

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

And to make political hay while the sun shines. As Saul Alinsky said, never let a crisis go to waste.

Re:There is no real shutdown

[Sarten-X]

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.

...And now it's spending less money on having fewer security guards.

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

...Ensuring a clean shutdown from a known-good state, rather than expecting they'll need to spend more time troubleshooting everything when they get back.

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

If you're in a position to be laid off by the government, you're already pretty dependent on it. Once laid off, you have time to look for a job that isn't so tightly integrated with the madness of Congress. Layoffs seem to have the effect of pushing people away from government dependence.

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

It is my land, isn't it? And it's also my neighbor's land, and his cousin's, and his nephew's friend's dog's mother's owner's dentist's son's land, too. It's all of ours, and the majority of us have decided to accept a common authority to ensure that the freedoms and amenities we have today are still around for our descendents. That means we want adequate security to keep vandals from screwing up our shiny monuments, and we want jackasses in the vocal minority to stop assuming they can be exempt from the rules by just ignoring authority. That's my government you're denouncing, and my neighbor's, and his cousin's, and his nephew's friend's dog's mother's owner's dentist's son's, too.

Re:There is no real shutdown

[Ralph Wiggam]

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

Yeah, so those parks don't get covered in trash, graffiti, and meth labs while nobody is available to patrol them.

Re:There is no real shutdown

[Obfuscant]

And CoverOregon.com, the Oregon marketplace website is open, they just haven't created the part that allows you to actually sign up for a plan. Yet, the banner proudly proclaims that they've made it easy to find and sign up for plans.

Not ready for prime time. A year's delay would have been appropriate, just like the year's delay for large corporations that Obama granted them was appropriate.

Re:There is no real shutdown

[Obfuscant]

...Ensuring a clean shutdown from a known-good state, rather than expecting they'll need to spend more time troubleshooting everything when they get back.

You've never run a webcam site, have you? I have. If it fails, it fails. There is no "clean shutdown" necessary. You still fix the same thing when it breaks.

Layoffs seem to have the effect of pushing people away from government dependence.

This isn't a layoff, it's a furlough. Every one of those employees who isn't working today expects to go back to the same job with the same rate of pay and the same amount of accrued vacation and sick leave that they had when they left. In fact, they can't have less leave because they are prohibited from using leave time to cover the shutdown. Leave is an expense. Sicktime is an expense. They may be hoping for retroactive pay, but that's not a given.

Re:There is no real shutdown

[Obfuscant]

Yeah, so those parks don't get covered in trash, graffiti, and meth labs while nobody is available to patrol them.

Good to know that federal law enforcement is considered a non-essential service that is not exempted from the furloughs.

Re:There is no real shutdown

[Sarten-X]

You've never run a webcam site, have you? I have. If it fails, it fails. There is no "clean shutdown" necessary. You still fix the same thing when it breaks.

I've run a streaming radio station. Whenever we shut down, we had to first shut down our external relay, or it would get badly confused when we came back, and it took about three hours to fix. I doubt the Panda Cam is run on a dedicated relay, though... it's more likely stuck on to another server running other services, which are probably more complicated, and probably also much more damaging if failed. There's also the strong possibility that the order came down to shut down the whole data center, rather than just the Panda Cam. My radio station never shut down just its Internet stream, but we occasionally stopped broadcasting from the main station.

This isn't a layoff, it's a furlough.

I'm just using the example the OP did. As I understand, though, there is still the threat of layoffs in several places, since the budget that does eventually pass is a pretty wild unknown.

Re:There is no real shutdown

[khallow]

That's my government you're denouncing, and my neighbor's, and his cousin's, and his nephew's friend's dog's mother's owner's dentist's son's, too.

Sounds like maybe you guys deserve it. Hope the warranty didn't run out.

Re:There is no real shutdown

[Sarten-X]

Law enforcement is essential. Guiding tours, emptying trash cans, cleaning restrooms, and having enough security to watch tens of thousands of visitors each day are all non-essential.

Re:There is no real shutdown

[Obfuscant]

There's also the strong possibility that the order came down to shut down the whole data center, rather than just the Panda Cam.

Of course. It's better to inconvenience as many people as you can when you are taking advantage of a crisis.

As I understand, though, there is still the threat of layoffs in several places, since the budget that does eventually pass is a pretty wild unknown.

The "budget" that passed both houses was a continuing resolution. The difference was funding for ACA. If it passed the first time, chances are good it will pass again. The benefit is that there will be more money for salaries because the first few days weren't spent on those.

Re:There is no real shutdown

[Obfuscant]

Covering a park in trash, building a meth lab, spraying graffiti -- all are violations of law. The OP wasn't talking about maintenance, he was talking about criminal acts. Yes, I agree that law enforcement is an essential service, but apparently not to the government since dealing with criminals in the parks isn't.

Re:There is no real shutdown

[bobbied]

...Ensuring a clean shutdown from a known-good state, rather than expecting they'll need to spend more time troubleshooting everything when they get back.

You've never run a webcam site, have you? I have. If it fails, it fails. There is no "clean shutdown" necessary. You still fix the same thing when it breaks.

More likely, they just turned off a whole set of systems for safe keeping while the administrative staff responsible for them are sitting at home. It just so happened that the web cam feed was disrupted when everything got shut down.

Re:There is no real shutdown

[SuperKendall]

...And now it's spending less money on having fewer security guards.

Have you ever been to ANY national monument? They may have police around, but no "federal guards". They have staff - that were there for posted hours, not the 24x7 the monument is available to walk through.

And just how do you imagine simple barricades would stop a grafitti artist anyway? ...Ensuring a clean shutdown from a known-good state

Come on.

If you're in a position to be laid off by the government, you're already pretty dependent on it.

I've worked for companies that I could tell were going south. I left. I agree that shutdowns like these may make some federal employees think twice about where they work, but that is for the better.

It is my land, isn't it? And it's also my neighbor's land, and his cousin's, and his nephew's friend's dog's mother's owner's dentist's son's land, too. It's all of ours, and the majority of us have decided to accept a common authority

Are you so sure it's the majority? I would warrant if you polled every citizen if they should be able to enter a monument that is normally open 24x7, regardless of the federal government declaring it closed, a majority would say you could just go in. And that is what some have done already.

If you exert too much "ridiculous" authority then a majority stop believing that any authority applies. And that is the real damage that absurd shutdown closures have, weakening respect for all other laws and authority.

That's my government you're denouncing

"Your" government sucks which is why it's being slowly rebooted or ignored.

Re:There is no real shutdown

[Ralph Wiggam]

State and local law enforcement services are not staffed, trained, or equipped to patrol massive parks.

Re:There is no real shutdown

[SuperKendall]

But just a few months ago someone defaced the Lincoln monument

Which happened WHILE it was open.

So how is putting up a barricade a ten year old could climb over going to stop that? Remember these sites have NO entrances, they are free to wander through 24x7 being part of the national mall (park). If they aren't putting up barricades when the sites are open would would they do MORE work with it being closed?

And why wouldn't DC just put one or two police watching the parks (which they have anyway already). The DC police have not been laid off, they are not federal workers.

No, the barricades do nothing to protect anything, they are simply there for annoyance.

Re:There is no real shutdown

[Obfuscant]

State and local law enforcement services are not staffed, trained, or equipped to patrol massive parks.

Who is talking about state and local law enforcement? You were referring to the closure of federal parks "so those parks don't get covered in trash, graffiti, and meth labs while nobody is available to patrol them." I commented, based on that, that "federal law enforcement" is not considered essential.

You justified closing national parks (even though the parent referred to monuments) because nobody is available to patrol them. Nobody is available to patrol them because the people that would patrol them are considered non-essential and thus on furlough. This isn't a case of "guides and emptying wastebaskets" that truly is non-essential, it is patrols to deal with criminal activity.

The implication is that other federal law enforcement is non-essential, since the enforcement of laws in the parks is non-essential.

Re:There is no real shutdown

[Ralph Wiggam]

You think that the FBI and ATF are staffed, trained, and equipped to patrol federal parks? The park service law enforcement becomes non-essential as soon as you close the parks. It is in no way "essential" for a person to visit a park.

And federal monuments are in federal parks and federal parks are often designated as monuments.

Re:There is no real shutdown

[bws111]

What does staff being there 24x7 have to do with anything? Are you trying to say that a cleaning crew that only works 8 hours a day is not an important thing to have? You seem to have no idea how quickly a completely unhealthy and unsanitary condition can occur. The barricades are not there to stop those conditions from happening (they won't), they are there to keep the general public from those conditions. Even if people think it is OK to go around the barricades, so what? Maybe you don't care if the average tourist sees a completely desicrated monument, but I don't think that a majority of the people would think that is a good idea. People have pride in the monuments, etc. Nobody wants someones lasting image of a monument to be one of filth and uncaring.

Re:There is no real shutdown

[BenSchuarmer]

Last time I checked, the state or Oregon is different from the federal government.

Re:There is no real shutdown

[vettemph]

>> The NASA website is closed

Damn, now where will I get my artist's rendition of the planets we can't actually see and can't get to from here?

Re:There is no real shutdown

[SuperKendall]

The NASA website takes bandwidth and electricity etc.. that is, it cost money to run. Even a republican must know that.

I'm not a Republican. I'm a Libertarian. That's how I'm smart enough to realize that a server feeding you a page saying it's not up because of a shutdown, is still consuming electricity and bandwidth and could just as easily be feeding you the same pages it had up yesterday...

Would you care to explain why whitehouse.gove and the Obamacare sites and many other federal sites are still up, since they would seem to have the same "electricity" limitation you just outlined?

Everything you say just adds to the pile of proof that shutdown is a selective farce.

Re:There is no real shutdown

[SuperKendall]

What does staff being there 24x7 have to do with anything? Are you trying to say that a cleaning crew that only works 8 hours a day is not an important thing to have?

Not for most memorials which are essentially a series of statues, perhaps with two garbage cans in the area - that could be cleaned by visitors just as easily.

Maybe you don't care if the average tourist sees a completely desicrated monument,

I do care, that's why I dislike pointless barricades so much.

People have pride in the monuments, etc.

You don't seem to think so since you are the ones saying visitors will desecrate them without supervision - even though the monuments already spent a majority of time unsupervised.

Visitors can take care of the monuments leaning needs just as well as cleaning staff. When I visit most national parks I am always picking up trash that others have left behind...

Re:There is no real shutdown

[Sarten-X]

They may have police around, but no "federal guards". They have staff - that were there for posted hours, not the 24x7 the monument is available to walk through.

I've spent a good chunk of my life shuffling around in the National Park Service, and I can assure you that there are indeed staff operating 24/7, regardless of the park's operating hours. Since the whole point of most parks is natural beauty, they generally try not to be seen. They wear dull clothes, avoid the visitors, and mostly just watch for anything that needs immediate attention. Any major work is done after hours, so as not to interfere with visitors.

And just how do you imagine simple barricades would stop a grafitti artist anyway?

I never suggested they would. They do keep most people out, though, so one guard can watch a whole side of a monument, rather than normal operations where a guard can only watch a small section of the usual crowd.

Come on.

I've also spent a good chunk of my life in data centers and NOCs. Every major system has a startup and shutdown procedure, and I have yet to meet a system that worked best after an unexpected failure. Please go find a good sysadmin (or his boss), and tell him that he'll be locked outside his server room for the next week, and though the services will continue running and the servers will remain on the Internet, his remote administration access will be blocked and nobody else will be allowed normal access to the servers, either. He'll also be responsible for fixing anything that goes wrong. Then ask if he'd prefer to just shut down for the week.

Are you so sure it's the majority? I would warrant if you polled every citizen if they should be able to enter a monument...

You've failed your reading comprehension. The majority still accept government authority, period. Yes, we may disagree with individual decisions, but we abide by government rules because having the system in place is preferred to not having it. Personally, I think that in the event that no budget can be approved, the government offices should stay operating under the previous year's budget, prorated to cover the additional time, except for congressional salaries, which should be forfeited until an agreement is reached.

a majority would say you could just go in

[citation needed]. Please, give me any source where a statistically-valid majority say that access rules should be ignored in favor of the tragedy of the commons.

And that is the real damage that absurd shutdown closures have, weakening respect for all other laws and authority.

So, in other words, if the government doesn't cater to your every whim, granting you 24/7 access to everywhere you want to go, you advocate lawlessness, counteracting the efforts of the last hundred years of conservation? It takes only a moment for a careless visitor to destroy thousands of years of natural beauty. Yes, people are ignorant enough to damage monuments without knowing it.

"Your" government sucks which is why it's being slowly rebooted or ignored.

It's your government, too. You did vote in the last congressional election, didn't you? You did follow the procedure to have your voice heard, right? Or do you only speak when you're angry?

Re:There is no real shutdown

[Reziac]

They even helpfully closed parks they don't own!

from http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/pruden100413.php3

The Park Service appears to be closing streets on mere whim and caprice. The rangers even closed the parking lot at Mount Vernon, where the plantation home of George Washington is a favorite tourist destination. That was after they barred the new World War II memorial on the Mall to veterans of World War II. But the government does not own Mount Vernon; it is privately owned by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association. The ladies bought it years ago to preserve it as a national memorial. The feds closed access to the parking lots this week, even though the lots are jointly owned with the Mount Vernon ladies. The rangers are from the government, and they're only here to help.

Re:There is no real shutdown

[Reziac]

"The majority still accept government authority, period."

And there's the problem. The power is no longer with The People.

Re:There is no real shutdown

[Reziac]

Me, I want to know where they're buying web hosting by the day. ;)

Annual contract, more likely.

See also
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/pruden100413.php3
and
http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell100413.php3

[In my observation, Mr.Sowell is rarely wrong.]

FTFY

[tgd]

This article is pointless--a fiscal year ended on September 30th. Of COURSE the business is going to spend money like crazy--just about every purchasing department in the company waits until the very last day to fill out their orders. Doing so allows them to negotiate for better deals to benefit the shareholders, 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.

There. Tweaked it a bit, just to drive home how moronic this article is.

Re:FTFY

[Anonymous Coward]

I am in the military and my department was not allowed to spend money for the last 6 months until last week, when money magically dropped. All of the necessary items had been seriously prioritized in the last six months, so the things that were purchased were not frivolous. Actually, the most frugal government year I have seen.

Re:FTFY

[Sarten-X]

Except that, by now becoming a government contractor, Autonomous Killer Robots Inc. is now subject to oversight from the Government Accountability Office, and must submit loads of paperwork detailing where all that money went and why. Any internal waste or excesses must be documented, and if the GAO doesn't like what they see, you won't get another government contract until the GAO is happy with your reports. There's not a terribly large market for headgear-targeting weaponry, so those future contracts are vital to AKR Inc. That's a pretty strong incentive to sell the product at a low cost, and cut expenses everywhere you can.

Like a good bureaucrat

[satsuke]

I may or may not agree with their mission and goals, but given the fact that the government shutdown was more or less known about for months ahead of occurring, I'd like to think that the bureaucrats at the pentagon were simply doing their job by making these large contract awards instead of pretending that the shutdown wasn't going to happen.

e.g. it's a lot easier to deal with a delay in paying for spare parts on the tail end than it is to do without those parts on the front end.

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:This isn't unique to govt.

[dirk]

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.

If you have to burn money at the end of the year, then you DON'T need it. The very definition of having too much money in the budget is having to work and find places to spend it all so you don't lose it.

Re:This isn't unique to govt.

[Firethorn]

If you have to burn money at the end of the year, then you DON'T need it.

You're missing part of it. Expenses are generally NOT static. Consider a personal level - Let's say that my annual expenses were $18k last year, but I got $20k to cover it.. This year I discover my roof needs fixing ($2k), so actually 'need' the full $20k.

What tends to happen is that if they have a year where they only spend $18M they lower that authorization down to $18M. So 2012 - $20M, 2013 - $18M. So now when the roof breaks they don't have the ability to fix it without compromising the mission in other ways.

Now, they have some ability to cost shift between fiscal years - delay fixing the roof this year into the next, delay or speed up replacing durable equipment - everything from computers to vehicles, number of spare parts you buy, etc... But that ability is limited.

Re:This isn't unique to govt.

[mdielmann]

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.

If you have to burn money at the end of the year, then you DON'T need it. The very definition of having too much money in the budget is having to work and find places to spend it all so you don't lose it.

While this is true in general, there are other specific issues that complicate things. Let's say you need $1M every year, at most. One year in 3 you only really need $850k. If you don't spend that $150k, you won't have the $150k you're going to need next year without fighting for it. If budgets weren't measured merely by last year's spending, but used some more complicated trending, as well as including incentives to keep budgets low, perhaps we wouldn't have this issue as badly.

As a general rule, people do what you reward them for. If you reward them for constantly over-spending, that's what they will do.

Re:This isn't unique to govt.

[Obfuscant]

The very definition of having too much money in the budget is having to work and find places to spend it all so you don't lose it.

What you missed, because knowing the truth would have ruined a good anti-government rant, is that half of the money they counted in this "more than $5 billion" end of year spending spree is actually money from next year. The $2.5 billion to Pratt and Whitney is money from FY2014, which is RIGHT NOW, not last year (two days ago.) And that money covers five years of spare parts.

You don't have to work very hard at all to know you need to buy spare parts for your jet engines. Only a moron would wake up on the last day of the fiscal year and say "gee, I wonder if we need spare parts for the jet engines?"

Re:This isn't unique to govt.

[jmhobrien]

This mentality just demonstrates that the people responsible for planning the budget have no idea what they are doing. Why aren't these chumps more specific about what they WILL spend money on over the following 12 months?

Re:This isn't unique to govt.

[Bite The Pillow]

I've heard this for years. Is it still true? Anyone going to corroborate this?

I automatically discount any claim that starts out "Pretty much any large organization" - because how many large organizations publicise how they spend money?

It is one of those things that makes sense, and probably has happened by an actual organization. And therefore is suspect as a blanket statement.

The large organizations I know report either profit or loss, and giving back the budget counts toward profit, unless you are a cost center. Since you made no such distinction, I have to assume you are completely full of shit. Or at least to whatever percentage that large organizations have of cost centers vs. profit centers.

So, any corroboration so we can go back to arguing with trolls? Any actual firsthand evidence of this kind of thing? Reply anon with some hint if you must. I can certainly see asshat managers who build large teams and budgets solely for C.V. bullet points, but they seem the exception rather than the rule.

Re:This isn't unique to govt.

[toddestan]

Imagine that your employer, seeing that you banked $X this year, decides to lower your wages by $X next year because 'you didn't need it'. In that situation, you might as well blow that money on a cruise rather than saving it.

Yes, the situation is stupid and wasteful, but that's how it works.

Re:Innovation

[GameboyRMH]

Yes but innovation in weapons isn't terribly useful. A government R&D department that releases its inventions to the public domain would be a better recipient of frivolously spent assloads of cash than a "defense" company.

Re:NOT News For Nerds

[MightyYar]

It's certainly not news for nerds with any kind of a filter. $5 billion is less than 1% of the military budget. Assuming 260 work days per year and a $665 billion budget, an "average" day would be $2.56 billion. Obviously not all of that is procurement, but still this should elicit a yawn.

NSF on the other hand...

[Kwyj1b0]

Cannot just hand out grants to scientific research in the last few hours of the day. Nor the NIH.

Shit like this is what makes me angry at the priorities of the US. There is a very good reason that the NSF program directors can't hand out money to their buddies - proposals need to be submitted, evaluated, debated, etc. But were there multiple competitors for the money given to Pratt and Whitney? Did they have to read, deliberate, and have experts from various organizations debate the merits? Or did some guys get together and say - 'we have a really tough job to do; we need to distribute several billions in a few days/hours'?

And the priorities won't change because of short-sighted citizens being deliberately misled by politicians. If even $500,000 (which isn't really that much for research - it basically hires two or three graduate students at a university for 3 years) gets spent on video game or emperor penguins research, there will be blustering in front of the camera, decrying spending on ivory-tower academics (despite a lot of NSF money going to work that can be of immediate use - but politicians cherry pick programs for outrage) while 'Average hard working blue collar church going Americans are out of jobs and millions go to researching fruitflies'. Want to give a couple million dollars to your buddies in Lockheed or Raytheon? 'We are fighting a war on ... Can't afford to show weakness in the international stage... must maintain superpower position...' And the short-signed public goes... "No to Fruitflies, yes to bombs."

Sometimes I wish that some form of achievement was necessary to vote. For your local and county, everyone in that locality gets to vote. But for higher, more powerful positions, you need to prove atleast a rudimentary understanding of the issues before being allowed vote. Nowadays it is more like a popularity contest. Say the right things on stage, flash a smile, kiss some babies, and never-ever say - 'Hmm... this is a nuanced problem that has multiple tradeoffs that needs to be analyzed'. Instead, go with 'Raise taxes on the rich' or 'cut welfare spending'.

Re:NSF on the other hand...

[Obfuscant]

But were there multiple competitors for the money given to Pratt and Whitney? Did they have to read, deliberate, and have experts from various organizations debate the merits? Or did some guys get together and say - 'we have a really tough job to do; we need to distribute several billions in a few days/hours'?

The summary is a wonderful rant on the government bypassing shutdown, but a few facts might clear things up. The government wasn't yet shutdown when the contract was awarded to Pratt and Whitney. There goes the "military can spend while the government is shut down! " rant.

And then, by simply following the Reuters article linked to in the summary itself, you will find that the contract is:

• Sole source. Sole-sourcing a contract means you've got a justification for not bidding it out. That justification might be:
• For spare parts. That means, we've got a lot of Pratt and Whitney engines that need spare parts. Jet engines in high performance aircraft like fighters aren't like car engines that only need oil changes every 5000 miles. They have regular maintenance after relatively short usages, and that takes parts. Parts that are best supplied by the same company that makes the engines. That way there is some guarantee they'll work in the engine you put them in.
• Is being paid for out of FY 2014 money. They're not spending $2.5 billion of this year's money in a fire-sale spending binge, they're spending next year's money.
• Runs until Sept. 2018. Five years. $500 million a year.

But for higher, more powerful positions, you need to prove atleast a rudimentary understanding of the issues before being allowed vote.

This statement disqualifies you from being able to vote under your own rules. This is nothing more than a literacy test with a more politically correct name. Since you don't have a working knowledge of history behind voting, you should not have the right to vote.

Now, myself, I prefer a bit different, election specific solution. I figure, if you're voting on a proposal for a tax, you aren't allowed to vote for that tax unless you voluntarily pay an amount equal to what it would cost someone who is subject to that tax would pay in the first year. Call it "escrow". It will cover your first year's payment of that tax if it passes. If it doesn't, well, I'm all for the money going to the general fund.

This would stop the kind of nonsense where people who don't smoke vote in ever-higher cigarette taxes on other people. Or non-drinkers add to the alcohol taxes. It's always easy to vote yes when it will cost you exactly nothing. If it so important that the taxes be increased, then you should think it important enough to pay that tax yourself, voluntarily. And this goes doubly true for tax levies to provide services. You want the library to be open on Monday so much that you'd reach into other people's pockets to pay for it, well, you show you value that service by voluntarily paying for it first.

It will never happen, but it's a nice dream.

Re:NSF on the other hand...

[Sepodati]

Have you ever written a contract? A price estimate? Bid? Even sole-source requires a lot of work.

This isn't walk in and "where do I sign for some money?"

Re:NSF on the other hand...

[jittles]

Cannot just hand out grants to scientific research in the last few hours of the day. Nor the NIH.

Shit like this is what makes me angry at the priorities of the US. There is a very good reason that the NSF program directors can't hand out money to their buddies - proposals need to be submitted, evaluated, debated, etc. But were there multiple competitors for the money given to Pratt and Whitney? Did they have to read, deliberate, and have experts from various organizations debate the merits?

You are either completely ignorant of how GAO works (which incidentally, covers more than just DoD), or you are blindly biased against defense spending. Having worked in the defense industry, I can tell you that there was either a study done to prove that there was validity in doing a sole-source contract, or there was an Request For Proposals (RFP) issued by the DoD. Once the DoD approves a vendor, and picks a contract vehicle to fund the order on, the GAO then comes in and decides whether or not the contract should actually be issued, whether the process was fair, and whether the price is correct.

Part of my duties at this defense contractor was to help write technical approaches to these RFPs. It can be a long and grueling process. It often takes 6 months or more to even know whether or not you have a chance of winning the contract. Once you are awarded the contract, anyone who submitted a response can contest that award and cause it to be re-bid. This results in you often having to respond to a modified RFP, or otherwise updating your bid. I have personally seen a contract be re-bid three times before it even made it to the GAO, who took another 2 or 3 months to decide whether or not to actually honor the award.

In my experience, I would often submit my proposal at the beginning of the fiscal year (Oct - Dec is the first quarter for the USG), and not know whether or not we would actually be awarded by the GAO until September (the end of the 4th quarter for the USG). So do they spend a hell of a lot of money in September? Yes. And for a lot of reasons. But they don't just shovel out $5B of dollars any which way they can. So go on and rant about the way we spend money on Defense (I personally agree that we overspend in that area), but don't try and claim that the DoD has it any different than the NIH. The only difference is the size of the purse.

Re:NSF on the other hand...

[Kwyj1b0]

This statement disqualifies you from being able to vote under your own rules. This is nothing more than a literacy test with a more politically correct name. Since you don't have a working knowledge of history behind voting, you should not have the right to vote.

I stand by my statement. At the time, I admit I didn't bother to RTFA, and my opinions should be given less weight than yours (since I didn't know that the engines had to delivered by P&W). Justifiably, if it came to talking about how defense money should be allocated, my voice shouldn't be heard (since I do not have a working or even second-hand knowdedge about it). I'd be glad if military spending decisions is entrusted to those who satisfy two requirements: (1) They have knowledge of the how spending works in this domain, (2) They do NOT directly benefit from the allocation of funds.

The problem with the literacy test (in your link) is the questions are arbitrary. And no, not knowing of the history of voting doesn't mean my vote on something unrelated (say, if we vote on who should be on the Committee on Science) should be impacted - it just means I shouldn't get to vote on political science issues. Obviously, it isn't going to happen. Any such system will disenfranchise some section of society. But the other extreme - where a creationist gets on the science commitee is a perversion of the system as well.

Re:NSF on the other hand...

[Obfuscant]

I stand by my statement.

Ok. But then you defend it by talking about the spending and not the literacy test you propose to allow people to vote. That's the part that disqualifies you from voting -- you don't know voting history.

The problem with the literacy test (in your link) is the questions are arbitrary.

As would any literacy test be. Someone gets to pick the questions. What's the relevant issue when deciding if someone knows enough to vote for a Senator? Which of the candidate's policies are important, which are not? And how do you word the questions? What is the correct answer?

You apparently don't know that polling is a science, and that the appropriate questions can evoke the desired result. "Are you aware that candidate X is a homophobe?" Gee, did he actually say that or is that your interpretation of a position he takes that you think is anti-homosexual? Does he really hate the people you think he does, or is the reason for his vote something else?

The process of writing an unbiased description of a ballot measure can be nearly impossible; you expect that unbiased questions testing the voter's knowledge of candidates for a political office will be trivial?

But the other extreme - where a creationist gets on the science commitee is a perversion of the system as well.

I see. The only "science committee" can think of that you may be referring to is a house or senate committee. Therefore, you have just told us that creationists should not be elected to congress at all because they may be elected by their peers (not you) to a science committee of some kind.

Yes, you've proven beyond a shadow of doubt that you know so little about the history and privilege of voting that you should be kept far away from the ballot box -- under your own proposed rule.

Re:NSF on the other hand...

[Kwyj1b0]

Yes, you've proven beyond a shadow of doubt that you know so little about the history and privilege of voting that you should be kept far away from the ballot box -- under your own proposed rule.

You seem to be mixing up the two positions - just because I don't know about the history about voting shouldn't make me ineligible to vote on ANY issue, just that I shouldn't be voting on voting laws itself (and I know that is what we are discussing - but this is a discussion about a system, not an actual vote which I wouldn't get).

Basically, I'm talking Direct Democracy mixed with the current system. While it is impractical for a society of 300 million people to gather at the country stadium, technology can help there. I have to be eligible to vote on certain issues (kind of like a literacy test), with some mix of representative democracy (to prevent the majority from oppressing the minority socially/legally. You are absolutely free not to believe in gravity. However, if you do hold such beliefs, you shouldn't be free to have a say - either in votes or through a representative - on what NASA should be doing).

Anyway, this is now very off-topic. I learnt something new about how defense budgets work, which is why, in general, I come here.

Re:NSF on the other hand...

[Kwyj1b0]

You are either completely ignorant of how GAO works (which incidentally, covers more than just DoD), or you are blindly biased against defense spending.

I admit the working of the GAO is new to me. Why is it, then, that I have never seen/heard about NSF distributing large sums/grants on the last day of the fiscal year? There seems to be a rush to approve programs here - is it that a lot of programs have their allocation deadlines set to September 30th, or are the allocation deadlines open ended (theoretically), and the people start rushing in approving projects towards the end of the fiscal year (which might imply that the review isn't as good - there is a rush to get them out the door)?

Re:NSF on the other hand...

[Obfuscant]

You seem to be mixing up the two positions - just because I don't know about the history about voting shouldn't make me ineligible to vote on ANY issue,

If you don't know the history and background for what you are doing, how can you do it intelligently? That's your goal, to stop people who don't know what you think they should know from voting. Well, I happen to think that knowing that requiring a literacy test prior to being allowed to vote is unconstitutional is something you should know before you can vote. It's not two positions, it is one position, consistently and clearly stated.

But I'll add a second reason. You want to take the right to vote away from people because you don't like how they use it, therefore you should have yours taken away, too.

Basically, I'm talking Direct Democracy mixed with the current system.

No, you are rather obviously talking "literacy test" with questions that filter out things you think shouldn't be allowed. Like voting a creationist into congress because he might be voted into a scientific committee. You don't vote for scientific committees in congress, you vote for your guy and the other guys who are elected with him create the committees.

I have to be eligible to vote on certain issues (kind of like a literacy test),

Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. Kind of like a literacy test? Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, bottoms up when it dines or sups like a duck? It's a duck.

You are absolutely free not to believe in gravity.

Huh?

Anyway, this is now very off-topic.

I'd say so. Gravity?

I learnt something new about how defense budgets work, which is why, in general, I come here.

Why yes, defense budgets are the prime topic for a group that is supposed to be "news for nerds". That's why I come here every ten minutes, to learn about defense budgets. I would never think of going to a website that deals in defense budgets for that.

Re:NSF on the other hand...

[Obfuscant]

Why is it, then, that I have never seen/heard about NSF distributing large sums/grants on the last day of the fiscal year?

Because, for the most part, NSF is out of money by the middle of the year, and has been rejecting a lot of grant requests already.

Re:NSF on the other hand...

[jittles]

You are either completely ignorant of how GAO works (which incidentally, covers more than just DoD), or you are blindly biased against defense spending.

I admit the working of the GAO is new to me. Why is it, then, that I have never seen/heard about NSF distributing large sums/grants on the last day of the fiscal year? There seems to be a rush to approve programs here - is it that a lot of programs have their allocation deadlines set to September 30th, or are the allocation deadlines open ended (theoretically), and the people start rushing in approving projects towards the end of the fiscal year (which might imply that the review isn't as good - there is a rush to get them out the door)?

For the military, it often depends on what organization is doing the spending. For instance, the general AF, Army, Navy, etc often wait to spend money until the end of the fiscal year. The purpose is to ensure that there is no budget shortfall. Planes, tanks, and ships all need fuel. Fuel cost can vary dramatically. Perhaps some goods spoiled, or were damaged or lost? They save as much money as possible and then prioritize their projects based on need and money available. They complete the process as though they were going to award all of the contracts, but only award that which meets their budget and priorities at the end of the fiscal year. I've seen other groups that tries to line everything up to go thru GAO on October 1st. These groups share a budget with other groups. They spend their money as soon as they get it because, if they don't, another group can petition to use their unspent funds.

It's the Pentagon

[Minwee]

"We spend more money by 9 AM than most countries do all year"

Re:It's the Pentagon

[slash.jit]

I wonder what would it be for Dinner

Re:NOT News For Nerds

[Squiddie]

I agree, I wanted to read more about the robot submarines.

Shouldn't France being paying us?

[Supp0rtLinux]

"only 17 contracts including $49 million to help France buy 16 MQ-9 Reaper drones" I'm confused. Why are we helping France buy drones again? Shouldn't they be buying their own? And if its our technology, shouldn't they be paying us?

Re:Shouldn't France being paying us?

[Supp0rtLinux]

I guess this must be a case of "you gotta spend money to make money". Still...

IT'S HAPPENING

[spartacus_prime]

Good thing I spent $5 billion on tin foil the day before the shutdown.

Re:IT'S HAPPENING

[omnichad]

Probably shouldn't have bought your tin foil from a government contractor. Would have saved a little money.

It's not that bad

[Gravis Zero]

It could be worse, they could have spent that money to let creepy uncle sam rape you at the doctor's office. Thanks for doing what in the people's best interest! (People that don't donate to election campaigns aren't REAL people!)

I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

Re:It's not that bad

[GodfatherofSoul]

I'm liberal, so I considered it consensual.

Airforce - restrained?

[Richard_at_work]

It only seems that way because they signed the deal with Lockheed for the F-35 LRIP6 and LRIP7 contracts on the 24th of September, which together total $7.8Billion.

Re:Airforce - restrained?

[vandamme]

...which they don't need or want, but is made from parts from every congressional district.

Re:NOT News For Nerds

[deanklear]

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.

And here I was under the impression that the military wasn't a business. But I guess suiting up for the next avoidable war has higher margins than providing basic sustenance to women and children.

Way to go, guys. You're really doing a heckuva job.

used to be called UFR's

[alen]

unfunded requests

you would budget for lots of things but there wouldn't be enough money for it
at the end of the FY there was a huge pot of money left over that would be divided up and spent. every last penny because if you come in under budget then next year's budget is cut.

i used to have a government credit card and had to buy lots of worthless stuff just to spend money

Re:NOT News For Nerds

[FilmedInNoir]

Well, when poe-news shutdown everyone figured it was because Chet Faliszek finally got off his fat ass to help make Half-life 3.
Poe-news had a lot of this type of stuff, so see, I connected those dots: Politics->Old Man Murray->Chet's fat ass->Nerds.

$15,000,000.00 on HELIUM

[Phelony]

And everyone here poo-poos all the posts relating to wasted helium. This whole situation is outrageous.

Old quote

[DaveAtFraud]

"A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."

Supposedly said by Everett Dirksen when he appeared on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. There seems to be some question as to whether he actually said it but there are lots of sources that attribute it to him. Unfortunately, the archives for the Tonight Show don't go back far enough to include his appearance.

Cheers,
Dave

Re:Innovation

[Sarten-X]

Who makes the parts that go in those weapons? Who assembles them? Those "assloads" of cash don't just sit in a defense contractor's warehouse.

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

[tgd]

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.

And here I was under the impression that the military wasn't a business. But I guess suiting up for the next avoidable war has higher margins than providing basic sustenance to women and children.

Way to go, guys. You're really doing a heckuva job.

Wow, even more moronic posts, or maybe you're just trolling. In either case, it doesn't matter if you're a non-profit, a public company, a private company, an individual, a church, a charity or a government agency. You buy goods and services to utilize in producing whatever it is you're expected to produce. Could be a healthy community, could be a flock of followers, cars, growing children into adults or blowing the everliving shit out somewhere on behalf of a country. The need to do reasonable bookkeeping is common across all of them, even if most individuals suck about it. From that standpoint, they're all businesses.

Of course, via a certain level of abstraction, the military IS there as a business. We've overthrown governments for corporate interests many times in the last 150 years. It may happen via back room handshakes and sweet consulting deals after leaving office rather than invoices for services rendered, but it still happens.

So you're basically trolling or stupid on two counts -- feigning a belief (or actually holding a belief) that government didn't exist for the powerful, and feigning a belief (or actually holding it) that basic accounting practices are only held by independent corporations.

MajGen Smedley Butler to the white courtesy phone

[Thud457]

I'm shocked, SHOCKED to find that gambling is going on in here!

You don't think some naive teabagger malcontents in the House are going to interfere with biddness as usual, do you?

Re:Innovation

[TWiTfan]

No, but it certainly helps pay for the McDonnell-Douglas CEO's $19+ million/year salary.

I.R. legion

[Thud457]

no no no no no. They've got it all wrong.
It's for five million FEMA coffins.

For five million vampires.

Troll Article

[the eric conspiracy]

The Pentagon budget is roughly 700T. Given 250 working days per year they need to spend about 3B a day. So at the end of the month they tend to spend a bit more to catch up. $5B is just BAU (Business As Usual).

Nothing to see here, just move along.

Re:Troll Article

[SleazyRidr]

I think SNAFU is a more appropriate acronym, but that's probably just because I'm a socialist.

Re:NOT News For Nerds

[Kelbear]

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.

Re:NOT News For Nerds

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't tell what's satire and what is serious anymore.

Re:NOT News For Nerds

[AK Marc]

You have to vote with your page views. Your clicking and posting in this thread indicate that you *do* want political news, even if only to complain that you don't want political news. If you actually didn't want it, you'd block it from your feed or not click on it when it came up. You didn't. So you obviously wanted it, based on your actions, even if your actions are counter to your personal beliefs.

Re:NOT News For Nerds

[ColdWetDog]

We're here for you! Group hug!

Re:NOT News For Nerds

[bobbied]

It's not surprising to see a spurt of purchases at the end of the budget year.

You are correct in all that you say. I just wanted to make sure this one part was clear.

In the government being run on Continuing Resolutions like we've been on since this president took office, much of the budgeted money expires when the CR expires and this is usually written to be the end of the fiscal year. If you don't use the money in your budget, it goes away (expires) when the CR lapses.

naive perspective & this is def 'news'

[globaljustin]

the Federal fiscal year ended on September 30th. Of COURSE the Pentagon's going to spend money like crazy

wrong...you're taking some kind of 'in lab conditions only' perspective and you're dead wrong

this is not a lab or poly sci theory class...this is 21st Century American military spending...it's been fucking anarchy for them since Bush/9/11 and Obama is doing his best to reign them in

want specifics? for starters, these projects are unnecessary and over-budgeted...they are **typical** miliary/industrial complex contract giveawys...Republicans work in lockstep with the leaders of these corps

you're turning a blind eye to how far out these interests I speak of have gamed the system

-just about every purchasing department in the Federal Government waits until the very last day to fill out their orders.

this is just flat untrue...there is absolutely no reason waiting in this manner would help at all...

look, accept it...these contracts were **WASTE OF TAXPAYER MONEY**

the congnitive dissonance on this is off the charts for conservatives, GOPers, and "libertarians"...they never shut up about 'budget crisis' and 'deficit reduction' but they always, always, always bend over and take whatever the military/industrial complex asks

its a corporate giveaway...that's what this is!

Re:naive perspective & this is def 'news'

[bws111]

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. Damn near ALL companies, non-profits, governments, etc have the same spending pattern, and it matches this one perfectly.

Let's say you run an IT department, and you have a 5 year equipment replacement cycle. At the beginning of the year you put in your budget that you need X dollars for equipment replacement, and that money is given to you. Now, you could, if you are not too bright, go spend all of that money right now. However, in 6 months some piece of equipment that you were not planning on replacing fails and needs to be replaced. Uh-oh! You have no money in the budget to replace it.

So, instead, you don't spend all your money right away, and in 6 months you have money to replace the failing equipment that you were not planning on replacing. You get to the end of the fiscal year, and you still have what is left of that 'equipment replacement' money sitting there. So what are you going to do? You could decide that 'equipment replacement' isn't really needed, and give the money back, but in that case why did you budget for it in the first place? You could just repeat the same thing next year, but then you don't have a real equipment replacement plan, you are just in reaction mode all the time.

So what really happens is that you get to the end of the year and SPEND THE MONEY on equipment replacement, just like you planned to do in the beginning of the year. THIS is why just about everyone waits until the last possible moment to place their orders for anything that is not urgent. In addition, waiting til the last moment does, in fact, give you leverage with your suppliers. Why? Because you can say 'I have the money to spend, give me a good price and you can have it, or take your chances that next year I will still have money to spend.'

This is not 'lab conditions', this is real life. If you don't believe me, take a look at the financials of any company that sells primarily to business (ie not consumer stuff) and look at quarterly revenues. Notice a pattern?

Re:naive perspective & this is def 'news'

[dbIII]

That is a sign of an inflexible organisation that is hampered by tradition. If a place can't push spending ahead in a good quarter or cut back in a bad one then it is at a huge disadvantage.

Re:Fiscal cliff easily avoided.

[bobbied]

You obviously don't understand what "I'm in the Army" actually means... They own you, lock stock and barrel. Paid or not, you are in the Army. Your commitment to the services does not allow you to quit before your term is over. Further, if they don't want you to go and can invent a national security reason for you to stay, you get to stay.

Now it might be hard to get folks to sign up if they are not getting paychecks, but those who where unlucky enough to already be in the service have no choice.

Re:Makes sense

[bobbied]

You've worked for the government.. Haven't you.. ;)

I didn't say this was a good thing

[sirwired]

I didn't say this was a good thing or fiscally prudent. Just that using it to agure: "Look at how horrible our government is." it's not really a good example, as it occurs in pretty much every single large organization that uses annual budgets and breaks them into pieces.

We use annual budgets because "making things up as you go along" (expense planning on an "as-needed" basis) gets quite exhausting and makes advance planning difficult. In response, pretty much every large organization uses annual budges, and expecting something other than this would happen is simply not realistic, given human nature.

No Different than an IT Department

[Koreantoast]

This is no different than an IT budget that gets to the end of the year, realizes it still has some extra money, and then goes and makes a few extra purchases before the money disappears. I really don't see why this is such a big deal.

Re:No Different than an IT Department

[Gryle]

Why get upset with the Congresscritters who created this whole debacle when we can bitch about those evil military people who drob bombs on orphans?

Re:No Different than an IT Department

[dk20]

You have a budget which you "blow" when you realize you have an extra $5 BLN?

Must be nice when $5 BLN isnt a big deal...
Isn't this whole thing over affordable healthcare? Would $5 BLN have covered it?

Wrong Story Focus

[EMG at MU]

The problem is not that they renewed all these contracts at the EOY, the problem is that while the asshats in washington are bitching about spending on things like social programs and health care (not saying they are good or bad programs) the asshats at the Pentagon are spending money like a /.er at Frys and no one is discussing that.

I would love the discussion to be about whether or not we need to make these purchases given the state of our government budget and the global military situation.

Do we need to bribe France to buy war machines from American defence companies? Especially when we are sending home kids in Head-Start?

Making shutdowns worse than need be

[WaffleMonster]

Is it really necessary for government agencies to shut down access to public datasets and post messages about how everything is shutdown on their websites?

The systems are still up and running, Internet connectivity still up they just decided they would actively disable access to information wasting employee time to implement these changes for seemingly little to no productive reason. It is one thing to pull the plug if there is no money but they clearly have not done so.

I could see pressure to mine public attention in an effort to get shutdown lifted as soon as possible and everyone back at their jobs. Still the "sabotage" seems rather childish.

Re:19 million on cots?

[anjrober]

Its also often Commercial Off the Shelf software. COTS....
This is a frequent requirement for DoD software. they don't want custom builds if they can avoid it.
we have had this request many times.

Re:NOT News For Nerds

[AK Marc]

A well reasoned argument that follows the logical skills you've demonstrated earlier.

Re:NOT News For Nerds

[MightyYar]

Amazing how you missed 1 sentence in a 4 sentence post. It was the last one, where I said obviously not all of that is procurement. This post is getting dangerously long.

Re:NOT News For Nerds

[ifiwereasculptor]

Of course, via a certain level of abstraction, the military IS there as a business.

What layer of abstraction? The military exists to funnel money into the hands of banking, oil and weapon industries while protecting the interests of those same companies overseas. It's as much a business as a mexican drug cartel, only much more powerful and vicious.

Re:NOT News For Nerds

[rwise2112]

It's not surprising to see a spurt of purchases at the end of the budget year.

Plus, if they come in under budget, then they get rewarded with a smaller budget next time.

Perfectly logical argument

[dkleinsc]

The cutoff date was also the end of the third quarter of 2013, and budgets have to be overrun or it would get cut next year (provided Congress and the President ever came up with a budget). My guess is that there's a flurry of spending on 9/30 (or the Friday directly before then if 9/30 falls on a weekend) every single year going back a couple of decades.

It's sort of like Neil DeGrasse Tyson's argument against one of the 2012 scares about planetary alignment: The planetary alignment the worrywarts were claiming was a disaster was going to happen on December 21, 2012, but it also happened on the winter solstice in every year before that.

Re:Perfectly logical argument

[kenh]

The cutoff date was also the end of the third quarter of 2013, and budgets have to be overrun or it would get cut next year (provided Congress and the President ever came up with a budget).

Close - it's actually the end of the fourth quarter of the 2013 fiscal year. October 1st is the first day of the 2014 fiscal year, and because there was no spending authorization to fund the government starting Oct. 1st, it shut down.

websites being down could have a valid reason

[Chirs]

Keeping a website up costs money in terms of bandwidth and electricity. If they have no money to pay for either of those and they haven't paid in advance, it actually could cause a site to go down...

Re:websites being down could have a valid reason

[Obfuscant]

Keeping a website up costs money in terms of bandwidth and electricity. If they have no money to pay for either of those and they haven't paid in advance, it actually could cause a site to go down...

You seriously think that the US Government isn't going to pay it's internet and electric bill because of the shutdown?

Re:websites being down could have a valid reason

[Reziac]

Hosting isn't bought by the day, or even the month most of the time. Even my piddly little webhosting account is bought by the block of six months. Do you seriously think a shutdown saved anything on their probably-annual hosting contract??

Re:NOT News For Nerds

[NatasRevol]

Ironically, I think it's both.

Or maybe that's just sad.

Robot Submarines

[Zynder]

I have been told they will be "Overlords" and that many here, including myself, are welcoming them.

dodging the point with deification cycle

[globaljustin]

You want to prove me wrong? Want to win this debate? read on...but first, I don't need your reductive lecture on how procurement works.

I used to be in the Air Force and worked with procurement people. I've been to the contractor trade shows.

It's a free for all corporate giveaway. The **prime** example of government waste that shows the glaring lies of Obama's critics and GOP'ers in general.

To falsify my point, say your ramblings about imaginary and unapplicable replacement cycles is true. Almost all government divisions that have budgets for contractors do exactly as you say. Fine.

In that scenario you are still wrong.

Why? The question is, is this spending justified?

The answer is no...no matter when people spend their budgets on contractors, the problem is the same **IT IS A WASTEFUL GIVEAWAY TO CORPORATIONS FOR NO GAIN TO CITIZENS**

That is the greater point....**we can go line by line, I'm in, but first you have to demonstrate that you are capable of rational discussion** ....you are dodging and trolling...and you didn't address at all the hilarious congitive dissonance over budget spending on this issue for consveratives like yourself.

Re:dodging the point with deification cycle

[Fallen Kell]

You want to prove me wrong? Want to win this debate? read on...but first, I don't need your reductive lecture on how procurement works.

Well obviously you did otherwise it wouldn't have been needed to tell you the obvious fatal flaw in your initial reasoning that budgets are always spent this way when you are dealing with a budget that accounts for incidentals, replacement parts, and consumables especially when you don't know what of those will be expended, wear out, or otherwise need more of to meet supply demands.

It's a free for all corporate giveaway. The **prime** example of government waste that shows the glaring lies of Obama's critics and GOP'ers in general.

To falsify my point, say your ramblings about imaginary and unapplicable replacement cycles is true. Almost all government divisions that have budgets for contractors do exactly as you say. Fine.

In that scenario you are still wrong.

Why? The question is, is this spending justified?

Yes, the spending is justified. Why? Because someone did a 3 or 5 year plan 1-2 years ago which went over the lists of all the things that are needed by the different departments. Those lists create a "wish list" of things that we can spend money on this year and not need to spend the money on next year. Most companies call it a capital expense plan, in which they perform a capital pull-in from the next year or more in advance on items which you can purchase now when you do have the money and save on purchasing later when you might not have the money due to some other unexpected expense.

The answer is no...no matter when people spend their budgets on contractors, the problem is the same **IT IS A WASTEFUL GIVEAWAY TO CORPORATIONS FOR NO GAIN TO CITIZENS**

So your solution is to not spend money on contractors, meaning you now have to hire in-house teams of scientists, engineers, and designers, purchase manufacturing facilities, hire manufacturing line workers, managers, HR staff, etc., etc., etc., duplicating many of the facilities that other companies already have built, expending trillions of capital to duplicate and compete against already in production companies across VAST business sectors such as CPU chip design, software engineering, computer manufacturing, automotive construction, heavy machinery construction, robotics, aerospace manufacturing, naval manufacturing, electronics manufacturing, etc., etc., etc... Yeah, that sure isn't a waste of tax payer dollars. Someone never went to business school as you obviously never learned how difficult it is and expensive it is to have to own and maintain all of those things. This is why most companies don't own their manufacturing, it is outsourced. Oh, you thought that BMW car you bought was made by BMW? They may have designed it, but that seat was made by another company. The dials used in the dash was made by another one. The tires were made by yet another. The wheels inside the tires was made by yet another. The bolts holding on the wheels were made by yet another. The glass for the windows and windshield were made by yet another company, etc., etc., etc., all contracted out...

The article sounds like a nightmare...

[unique_parrot]

...but a nightmare has the benefit of waking up.

Its called the "End of Year Dump"

[technosaurus]

... and I reported it to the waste, fraud and abuse line every year I was in the military even though I knew it wouldn't be taken seriously.

This is typical for any Fiscal year

[gatkinso]

That doesn't make it right - it is an artifact of use it or lose it (and then have next years budget cut because it is clear that you don't need it).

This has nothing to do with budget battles and government shutdown.

Bureaucratic self preservation at its finest. I am sure this has been pointed out many times above.

Re:NOT News For Nerds

[TapeCutter]

Probably a loan guarantee, it's the same thing as military 'aid' to Israel/Egypt, the 'aid' goes directly from the US government to the US arms supplier. The recipient country pays the money back to the US government. If the recipient nation is run by a strategically cooperative dictator then non-payment may be overlooked/forgiven.

Re:NOT News For Nerds

[Columcille]

The article was hosted on a computer. That makes it nerdy. Very nerdy.

Who is the enemy?

[manu0601]

US itself weight for 50% of word military expenses. US and NATO allies weight 80%. Considering the numbers, one could ask who is the enemy that is worth such an expense. If such an enemy exists...

Yes it is all a very silly stunt

[dbIII]

Yes it is all a very silly stunt and both sides are playing games to try to rub in their point. Did you expect anything else?

still dodging via procurement minutia

[globaljustin]

Because someone did a 3 or 5 year plan 1-2 years ago ...

that's not an answer...'because we had a guy fill out a procurement spreadsheet' is absolutely no justification to give corporatations a blank check

this conversation is a non-starter...you managed to use blockquotes but still are 'Straw Man'-ing me...no, jerk, of course i'm not against all government contracting...I am a government contractor...

everyone who's reading is free to scroll up and read my point...I don't think anything of value has transpired in our conversation because you are simply justifying your cognitive dissonance

5 Billion

[Hognoxious]

They got twenty hammers and a dozen toilet seats?

Re:NOT News For Nerds

[Hognoxious]

strategically cooperative dictator

Is that the politically correct phrase for someone who's a bastard, but at least he's our bastard?

'traveling wave tubes'

[vandamme]

So TWTs are "interesting"? If they ran out of spares, a lot of satellites, comm links and radars would go dark. THAT would be "interesting".