The Military Wastes SOOOO Much Money!

On this episode of Common Sense Soapbox, Ron, Sarah, Bob and Seamus get detained by the Coast Guard on a military base. Bob quickly learns that everything is WAY more expensive than it should be, but why? Seamus explains how waste is a feature, not a bug, of military spending and describes the perverse incentives and lack of oversight that fuel it.

Animation Credits:
Natasha Canepa
Jaime Velasquez
Caleb Black
Amazil
Seamus Coughlin

LINKS:

[societyofrobots]

I loved "use it or lose it" as a government lab contractor. My boss would say, "I got $10k, buy all the lab toys you want." Often times I bought useful stuff. Other times, my boss would loan out that extra money to another team that overspent, for "something" in return later. I'd say only 10% of money spent actually produced anything of value. Mostly government workers back scratching each other's pet projects, with a useless HR department that took 6 months to purchase a box of screws.

[AdamKlownzinger]

I’m blown away “Use it or lose it” budgets still exist. ESPECIALLY with a government that is literally in dire, life-threatening need of spending less money than is necessary.

[michaelmurphy]

It's not just the military. Most federal agencies have the "use it or lose it" budget. Every agency looks for ways to spend excess money in August and September.

[StandardsandPractices]

My old unit had a specialized lift for a piece of equipment we actually did use. However it was a hassle to switch from the forklift so we just used that and the specialized lift sat and did nothing.

[ericmadsen]

Seamus makes more sense then all of the experts in government.

[MrDj]

Have "use it or lose it" budgets ever been practical? Life isn't static, and putting money into something useful is way better than spending just to keep the same sized budget.

[FourOf]

that Patrick Warburton impression is uncomfortably accurate

[mkosmala]

I don't mind the high military budget. I mind when the budget is misallocated due to bad policy rather than simple human error (some research projects don't go anywhere for understandable reasons; that's not what I'm talking about). I'm referring to the charlie foxtrot that was digital camo (see Task and Purpose 'pitch meeting' video on it. It's... it's dumb camo).

[hueyiroquois]

I always thought that the Federal government couldn't do a damned thing right, but they seem to be doing a pretty good job of wasting other people's money.

[ihstuff]

I was a C-130 crew chief in the Air Force. One of the dedicated crew chiefs, a Tech Sergeant who was responsible for his own aircraft, ordered a $35, 000 black radome (the nose) because he wanted his plane to look cooler. It didn't need to be replaced, he just did it because it was cool.
On the other side of the coin, our resource officer wouldn't order us new flight line clothes and gear until our old stuff was practically in tatters. And they were usually soaked with carcinogens like hydraulic fluid, oil, grease, fuel, etc. "That jacket still looks fine to me!" Like it was coming out of his own pocket.

[blurglide]

There's a launch pad at Vandenberg AFB that hasn't been used in 40 years, and now is a museum. The water line leading to this pad needed to be replaced. It was 2 miles long and 12" in diameter to feed the deluge system used to cool the pad during a launch! The museum currator said "you can just run a small municipal line inside the old pipe". Nope- they dug up and replaced the entire 2 mile, 12" line. I ran some rough numbers and the water at the end of the pipe won't make it to the museum for about 32 years at their typical usage rate.

[Devynwithawhy]

"When a man spends his own money, he's careful how he spends it."
You haven't met my friends.

[techpriest]

Yea, nothing else in the service pissed me off more than watching hundreds of thousands of dollars wasted on things we didn't need. Meanwhile we couldn't get the things we actually needed.

[flux_inverter]

When I was in the US Navy on a carrier, we had a bunch of new bunks on board for refurbishing a sleeping compartment. We were pulling into a port to resupply on the way back to the States and was ordered to ferry items back to California. So, they dumped 50+ new bunks overboard before pulling in to make room for the items, which turned out to be several officers' personal possessions (i.e. cars & furniture) who were rotating back Stateside. The waste is real.

[krani]

Makes you wonder why "Use it or lose it" budgets are still a thing. I mean, if the military spends less than its budget, then returns that money to the govt at the end of the year, the govt is encouraged to give them more money because they showed they can use it efficiently and thus more resources will go further.

I mean, we KNOW those bloated alphabet bureaucracies aren't going to be efficient with their cash, so diverting funds away from them would be a way to tell them to trim the fat, yes?

[KingUnKaged]

I don't know why, but these videos having continuity somehow makes them even more enjoyable

[DeoFayte]

I learned a lot of the government does this when I worked in a computer assembly warehouse a few years back. Once a year, around the end of the governments fiscal year, business would boom as government agencies would just buy as many new computers as they needed to fill out the last bit of their budgets. Those computers would then mostly sit in storage for years until they were thrown away to make room for some more new computers.

[frednone]

I can still remember being in the navy and come the end of the fiscal year emptying out store rooms and tossing the stuff over the side so we could order replacements.

The real problem with they way the military spends is that their next years allotment is based on their last years spending, so if they don't spend every dime they could be looking at a smaller budget the next year.

[mr.normalguy]

This is straight up infuriating. But also depressing.

[SovereignStatesman]

The official term for what you call "use it or lose it, " is called "baseline budgeting;" since if there's anything left over, they figure it's not needed, and deduct it from next year's budget; so the department just spends everything to ensure it won't be cut next term. (This is opposed to "zero based budgeting, " where actual hard figures are used).
I studied Non-Profit Management in college, and it was the hardest course I ever took, because it was such a nonsensical and confusing pile of bureaucracy ad red tape.... basically why communism failed, because they go by endless written rules instead of economic reality of supply and demand.