Lobster Tails and a Fancy Chair: Report Shows Lavish Year-End Military Spending

[longknife]

There is not one single thing new about this. It has happened every September ever since the government’s budget year was changed. There are always “left over” funds and, in order not to lose funding for the next fiscal year, every government organization finds ways to spend it.

The 32-page Open the Books report, published this month, showed the federal government as a whole spent an astounding $97 billion in September 2018 as the fiscal year was drawing to a close -- up 16 percent from the previous fiscal year and 39 percent from fiscal 2015. DoD spending accounted for $61.2 billion of that spending spree, awarding "use-it-or-lose-it" contracts and buying, among other things, $4.6 million worth of crab and lobster and a Wexford leather club chair costing more than $9,300.

And Senator Rand Paul has to whine about it.


If he doesn’t like it, get Congress to enact a “Zero Base Budgeting” system for the government, Instead of relying on past year needs, force each agency to justify its budget on actual costs for that year.

"Congress is a lot of the problem," Smithberger said. "Appropriators look and see whatever is not spent, they take and use for their pet project."

More @ Lobster Dinners Not the Problem With Lavish Military Spending, Analyst Says