Pentagon program costing taxpayers millions in inflated prices

[johnfunk]

Your tax dollars (wasted) at work:

Pentagon program costing taxpayers millions in inflated prices
By LAUREN MARKOE and SETH BORENSTEIN
Knight Ridder Newspapers

Oct. 23, 2005–WASHINGTON /Knight Ridder/ The Pentagon paid $20 apiece for plastic ice cube trays that once cost it 85 cents. It paid a supplier more than $81 apiece for coffeemakers that it bought for years for just $29 from the manufacturer.

That's because instead of getting competitive bids or buying directly from manufacturers like it used to, the Pentagon is using middlemen who set their own prices. It's the equivalent of shopping for weekly groceries at a convenience store.

And it's costing taxpayers 20 percent more than the old system, a Knight Ridder investigation found.

Gotta love the Rumsfeld Regime: restoring honor and principle to the Department of Defense... NOT!!

[napi21]

1. This is the kind of cost cutting suggestions that the Dems should

be focusing on! Get the damn proof of what's being paid, on a per item cost, for all Gov't purchases! Use face time, on the House & Senate floor to publicize it!

ALL people easily recognize how wrong that is, and will support the people critizing the abuse!

How great would it be for a Dem to get before the mic and say, Pubs, I disagree with cutting medicare, medicaid, housing suppliments, etc. Here's what we spent on XXXXX, and I have a quote from XX to buy them for $XX! The calculation of savings, just by eliminating this gross overpayment abuse, we could save enough to pay for the hurrican costs!!!!

Gee, do you think we could get our Dems to do that????

[William Seger]

2. But "conservatives" jump for joy when Bush cuts wages...

... for Katrina restoration workers -- as if those out-of-state Republican-connected no-bid contractors are going to pass the savings along to taxpayers.

[Supersedeas]

7. little do they know

[xchrom]

3. please -- the pentagon used to go DIRECTLY to

manufacturers and make deals.

lol -- privatization is good for ''the few, the fleecers, and the con men''.

[cyberpj]

4. Nominated. And privatizing will work just the same way everywhere...

that's why BushCo wants it so badly for SS.

[lovuian]

5. Rumsfeld is using the Pentagon like his piggy bank!!!

Its sickening!!!

[cyberpj]

6. kick for more nominations... nt.

[brentspeak]

8. $20 plastic ice trays

Sums up the Rumsfeld/Cheney corruption scheme they have set up with the Pentagon.

[bleedingheart]

9. Oh...reminds me so much of the Reagan Era...

where the Pentagon was paying $436 for a $7 hammer...

they are really so much like their "gipper"

[Sgent]

10. There are advantages

and savings to using middlemen in many circumstances.

That being said -- this doesn't look like one of them.

It is not unreasonable in many cases to pay 1-2% more for many items if you can consolidate suppliers -- because you save that (or more) in the costs of shopping, shipping, accounts payable, etc.

[1932]

11. This is an interesting commentary on weakness of our economy.

During WW2, defense consumption took up such a huge part of the economy that the government had a price control board to prevent increasing demand due to military spending from causing price inflation for consumers.

Our military is spending so much money now, but it is not carrying over to the rest of the economy. Either military spending really isn't a big enough part of the GNP to cause reduced supply and increased prices for the rest of the economy, or the rest of the economy is so weak, that this price inflation in military spending is keeping the rest of the economy afloat (ie, it's keeping businesses in business).

It would be nice if we just spent the money we spend on the military in ways that would create a productive economy rather than a crony decaying economy.