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When I was in the Navy, we had $X to spend at the end of a quarter, and by god did we fucking spend it! Anything under the sun with any shred of argument that i
by ok_dad 2y ago
When I was in the Navy, we had $X to spend at the end of a quarter, and by god did we fucking spend it! Anything under the sun with any shred of argument that it was needed would be purchased. I was personally responsible for a huge department and I recall we had to spend an insane amount one quarter. I'm talking almost Brewster's Millions levels of trying to spend money, but let's call it Brewster's Hundred Thousands instead.
Spare parts for the Whizz-Banger which we would probably never use because you only need to replace that part maybe one time in the ship's life? Yea, buy ten of those! Fancy pocket tools and knives for every human onboard the ship, even the guys who sit at a desk ordering supplies? Sure, get two of them each, so they have a spare!
I always wondered why they did that "reset the budget to the lowest quarter" type of thing, just set a budget and if there is a surplus then next year the taxpayers don't have to pay as much. I don't know who ran the budgeting system, but it was fucked how badly we wasted money during quarters where nothing broke on the ship.
I don't read the news anymore to save my mental state, but I hope that this DOGE is a positive influence instead of just more oligarchy in action, though I am not holding my breath.
- exe34 2y agothere's approximately zero chance that the department of dodgy will go after this sort of thing.
- jpadkins 2y agowhy?
- exe34 2y agomuch easier to cut Medicaid, social security, education, and similar non-essential stuff. corporate handouts will increase, not decrease, when you have two billionaires in the white house.
- potato3732842 2y agoHow so? My expectation would be that budgeting process and can be reigned in by decree much more so than an official enshrined in law system like Medicare.
- exe34 2y agoyou're assuming good intentions. the two people just elected to the white house are two of the most selfish ever.
- 20after4 2y agoIt's called use it or lose it. If you don't spend 100% of the budget then it'll get permanently reduced in the next round and you'll have to fight extremely hard to get that budget back later if it turns out you need it. So you spend the excess on whatever will continue to justify line go up. This is just 100% accepted as a universal law of bureaucracy. As long as individual managers own parts of a budget, it applies to large corporations, non profits, and perhaps most of all in government.
- blitzar 2y agoWhen I was at a Fortune 500 company, we had $X to spend at the end of a quarter we spent it and more - I am talking millions. It's called use it or lose it - we would also overspend by as much as we could get away with so we had justification for asking for a higher budget next year.