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It's worse than you can imagine. I once witnessed a defense client creating a $5 mil project with a defense contractor out of thin air, because they didn't wan
by atonse 6y ago
It's worse than you can imagine. I once witnessed a defense client creating a $5 mil project with a defense contractor out of thin air, because they didn't want to lose the money at the end of the fiscal year (which was 3 months away).
Overnight, the defense contractor assembled a team of 20 people that were on the bench, so they could bill for the project. 20 random people that had never worked together before, all to work on an experimental java project the agency didn't need until that Monday (and I'd argue, didn't need even after that Monday). I suggested in that meeting "why don't we just return the money to the taxpayer?" and got glares from at least two senior executives.
Right there is 1/3 of the $15 million that is spent on Stars and Stripes.
With a $700bn budget, based on what I've seen of the defense industrial complex, I'd suspect at least 10% of that goes to complete waste (and toilet paper isn't waste. I mean things like IT projects that don't see the light of day, etc).
- snowwrestler 6y agoSounds like you witnessed federal contract fraud, which is a felony. Unfortunately there is no longer any good way to report this crime. Official whistleblower channels are compromised or ineffective, and going directly to the public... well, there are plenty of cautionary examples of how poorly that tends to go.
- atonse 6y agoWell I never witnessed any government employee saying this. I just realized my language sounded like I did. Oops. I was in a (private sector) meeting where they relayed the situation. So I wouldn’t say I witnessed it. I was called into a brainstorming session for “how can we spend this money? We need to come up with something quickly.”