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?

[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?

[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.

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.

[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.

[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?

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: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

[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

[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.

This isn't unique to govt.

[sirwired]

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

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

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

Re:NOT News For Nerds

[omnichad]

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

Re: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: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

[ColdWetDog]

We're here for you! Group hug!