
Pentagon Spent $5 Billion on Weapons on the Eve of the Shutdown - sdoering
http://killerapps.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/10/01/on_the_eve_of_the_government_shutdown_the_pentagon_spent_billions_on_weapons
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Shivetya
Don't single out the pentagon, the whole government acts this way

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-congress-fights-
ov...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-congress-fights-over-the-
budget-agencies-go-on-their-use-it-or-lose-it-shopping-
sprees/2013/09/28/b8eef3cc-254c-11e3-b3e9-d97fb087acd6_story.html)

~~~
chaz
This seems like it's the usual "use it or lose it" budget spending pattern
that happens on the last day of the fiscal year. This is more obvious when
looking at the sidebar graphic: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-
annual-agency-bat...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-annual-
agency-battle-to-spend-the-rest-of-their-
budget/2013/09/28/3121d6d0-289e-11e3-bae5-e0807a60a6aa_graphic.html)

~~~
squidfood
A lot of it is paperwork and bureaucracy making a false perception. Purchasers
make requests to procurement all summer. Procurement backs up, then pulls
massive OT in the last few days to get it out the door.

Part of it is also "parking" in contracts. What's shown as "spending" isn't
just stocking up on unneeded widgets for the sake of spending, but committing
to contracts that will use it over the next couple years.

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bane
Government awards new contracts at the start of the new fiscal year. News at
11.

What happens, and this is true of any organization where your budget is set
and allocated by somebody else, is that you have to show that your
organization actually needs the budget it was allocated last year by spending
or at least committing it all. It sends a signal that this year, when you say
you need $x you actually need $x. Coming in under budget in this case, say
$x-$k means that a signal is sent that you can probably come in under budget
again next year and you'll just get $x-$k to start with since they can use $k
somewhere else.

If you actually came in at $x-$k near the end of the FY? Spend $k on anything
and everything in sight to bulk up your numbers because you've probably
requested $x+$q for next year and have $0 left at the end is a good signal
that you could do more with more.

Also, with the shutdown have an indeterminate end, nobody knows how long it'll
be before they can award important contracts so if they can clear those out
ahead of time they will.

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Ellipsis753
I seemed to get two nag screens that I couldn't work out how to close so
here's a cache without them:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20131001183734/http://killerapps....](http://web.archive.org/web/20131001183734/http://killerapps.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/10/01/on_the_eve_of_the_government_shutdown_the_pentagon_spent_billions_on_weapons)

Edit: Blocking Javascript on the website with the No Script add-on should
probably work too.

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shubb
To get around FP paywall, use Firefox -> Web Developer -> Inspect to delete
the translucent element over the article, then copy paste into notepad.

~~~
stevenashley
Or create a bookmarklet pointing to:

    
    
        javascript:$('#globalPaywallWrap,#TB_window,#TB_overlay').css('display','none')

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mkmk
Not that surprising that lots of spending happens at the end of the quarter,
right? There is implied misconduct here but no real evidence that this is a
weird pattern.

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perlgeek
Well, each department spends the money it gets allocated. The timing looks
unfortunate, but I see no reason for making a connection and implying a
misconduct.

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melling
Why was this story submitted? It's not Hacker News.

[http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

Yes, some people love to talk politics all day long, and there's nothing wrong
with that. However, this isn't the proper forum.

~~~
xentronium
I don't know why this was downvoted.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Any post asking "Why is this on HN?" is going to be automatically down-voted
by those who believe that the parent commenter should have pressed the 'flag'
button instead of commenting.

~~~
melling
I usually only flag spam. I also posted the guidelines, so people reading the
thread could read them. We are getting a lot of political threads these days,
and I'm not sure new people understand that political posts aren't good.

