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

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: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.

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.

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: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: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!