RSSThe $750 Hammer is back with a Vengeance; Pentagon Pays $998,798 to Ship Two 19-Cent Washers
The $750 hammer seems like a mere bargain compared to the $998,798 the Pentagon paid 
for shipping two 19-cent washers to an Army base in Texas. If you do not think our government has too much bureaucracy and mismanages “your tax dollars,” think again. It took the Pentagon how long to figure this scam out? Its really easy to be careless and spend other people’s money.
A small South Carolina parts supplier collected about $20.5 million over six years from the Pentagon for fraudulent shipping costs, including $998,798 for sending two 19-cent washers to an Army base in Texas, U.S. officials said.
The company also billed and was paid $455,009 to ship three machine screws costing $1.31 each to Marines in Habbaniyah, Iraq, and $293,451 to ship an 89-cent split washer to Patrick Air Force Base in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Pentagon records show.
Read the full, eye popping and head scratching story.
This is not a Republican, George W. Bush Administration issue as some “hate GWB” democrats would like you to believe. Its a systemic issue with government whether either party is in office. There is no oversight due to bureaucracy. Newsflash, Dems want even a bigger nanny government than Republicans. This is not a “Left” and “Right” thing … its a government is far too big thing.
Posted August 17, 2007 by Scared Monkeys Bizarre, Corruption, Crime, Government, Military | 11 comments |
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11 Responses to “The $750 Hammer is back with a Vengeance; Pentagon Pays $998,798 to Ship Two 19-Cent Washers”
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evidently it’s not only the Democrats that don’t like Lil’ Bush. with only a 26% rating i’m sure there are some Republicans on that hate list, but this has been going on for years. million dollar washers, screws, a pallet with millions of dollars missing in Iraq and the American citizen is slowly sinking in medical debt. we are the greatest country in the world and our government won’t even take time to rebuild the criminal healthcare system for it’s own citizens.
Perhaps Tom Paxton can find the humor in this, I’m sure the rest of us don’t.
For those that may be interested, there is a distinct difference between the $750 hammer case and the corruption of overbilling the Government by thousands of dollars in shipping cost. The hammer payment was at the price the provider provided under the terms of the contract. It was not a crime, nor was it illegal. The excessive shipping costs for those washers/screws WAS a crime and illegal. Granted, whomever approved the specifications for the hammer and subsequently the price to the Government was probably excessive, BUT, that is due to bad decisions attributable to the Government’s own contracting officers.
“was probably excessive” hehehe
yeah I think so
This is criminal. When are charges going to be brought, and against whom? Or, is someone in the Pentagon involved? Of course, since no one is held accountable for anything anymore, the government’s contracting officers will plead ignorance, and the private contractor will somehow find justification. Dishonesty is rampant is this country, and everything is swept under the carpet.
Maybe we should take a look at China’s swift punishment of the owners of the tainted dog food companies….
This is the kind of stuff that really burns me up. None of these people are held accountable for this kind of stuff. It’s reported, and forgotten about. I would think eventually people would get fed up with being taxed to death only to have it spent on this nonsense and making these people millionaires. Just like the millions that disappeared in Iraq and the ones who were in charge went to different countries and built them big homes and are living the good life..at the expense of who?? Everyday citizens like us, wouldn’t get away with this crap for a second. The govt. would be the first ones after us if we tried it. Who holds these people accountable???
Having read the article, it would appear that the contractor in question was awarded an IDIQ (Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity) contract for machine parts as a small business set-aside. The real problem here is that the contractor deliberately defrauded the Government by entering fraudulent bills through an automated billing system that bypassed any human review of the purchases. The Government’s intent was apparently to accelerate deliveries of needed supplies to troops in the field, but in so doing opened itself up to fraud. I think it’s a bit unfair to blame the Government here — it was cheated by an unscrupulous contractor, and anyone is liable to be cheated. The good news is that the crime was uncovered, and the eventual sentence for the wrongdoer can discourage future incidents.
It’s great news that that this crime was uncovered, but we hear about this fraudulent activity too often. And, rarely does the public hear about anyone being prosecuted.
Just one more reason that this war in Iraq is bankrupting the United States!
Steve, And the Pentagon(govt) didn’t notice they were being charged almost a million for 2..19 cent washers?
This was pure fraud by the contractor.
As for $750 hammers and $600 toilet seats theres a reason for those high prices.
Back when I used to work for a defense contractor I asked my old boss about why these items cost so much. He said that items like these sometimes go thru the same testing as electronics equipment. As a test technician we had to do all types of electrical and also enviromental testing such as vibration testing….hot/cold extreme testing…drop testing..etc. Of course this testing isn’t free it sometimes takes many man hours and hundreds if not thousands of dollars in labor to do this. So the point is the reason a hammer or a toilet seat costs so much is probably because of all the testing the military requires the contractor to do on them.
Maggie said: “Steve, And the Pentagon(govt) didn’t notice they were being charged almost a million for 2..19 cent washers?”
SteveDinMD: Actually, Maggie, it would appear that someone did notice. The fraud was discovered months ago, and charges brought. Someone,then, apparently performed at least a preliminary audit of the billing system. My guess is that it was probably the high price billed that attracted the auditors’ attention. Though the Government spends vast sums, few individual items cost as much as was billed for the parts in question. Sadly, though, had the contractors been less greedy and billed, say, $50,000.00 per 19-cent item instead of $1 Million, they might have gotten away with it.