Actually, the point being, spending allotted budget so that the future budget doesn't get cut happens in most industries, certainly at every level of government and is going to occur whether or not we also fund healthcare and college for all. This is absolutely nothing new.

This. If you want it to change, there needs to be a mechanism to roll $$$ over to the next fiscal year without threat of losing it.

Dunno what you do for a living or where, but in my sector at least, whenever I go to a conference all the best parties, open bars, pimp giveaways, etc, are hosted by private sector vendors. Now, the gov't may end up paying for that indirectly when it comes time for the vendors to pad their gov't contracts that they've just buttered up, but the rank & file gov't employees I know sure as hell aren't getting all that lobster & such paid for on their travel expense claims ~ the only way they're getting stroked like that is if they're mooching from one of the private solicitor socials, or else paying out of pocket for whatever their balance is above the standard per diem rate. I can see it happening higher up at the level of elected/appointed officials who have more schmoozing to do like at the lobbying/contracting (aka legalized bribery) level, but hardly any of that trickles down to the schlubs who are writing reports and filtering spreadsheets.

Sorry it's not as outrageous or sexy to rant about like that, though.

$2.3 million on crab?
$2.3 million on lobster?

My spider senses are telling me there's a lot more to those stories.

The chair, the foosball table, maybe the pianos are understandable offenses. The others are so large that they are probably purchases that are being misrepresented.

this is the report the article is based on...

https://www.openthebooks.com/...tOrLoseIt_Final1.PDF

Most of the spending (including the lobster and crab) is DOD - good luck cutting that.

and I thought this was interesting...

"From 2015 to 2018, there was a 59.2 percent increase in use-itor-lose-it spending by the Office of the President. "

wonder why the WashingtonTimes didn't highlight that.

I think US sovereignty is a little more important than our elected kings and queens eating crab legs and listening to only the best piano music (721K for those) but opinions may vary.



Considering there hasn't been a full wall for the last 240 years, what changed in the last year or so that suddenly made US sovereignty such a threat?

Because the republican party is deeply unpopular and only has a tiny base, so the only way to win elections is to the scare the shit out of their base so they all vote.

Same for me in the Army. At the end of the year we would do inventory on the amount of ammo used. Since we hardly ever used any we had a lot left over every year. We had a lot of fun burning through thousands upon thousand of rounds on full auto.

Some from the M16 and from the M60. Since I was the gunner, I bent many barrels burning through the rounds. Such a waste, but a heck of a lotta fun.

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"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace." Jimi Hendrix

This. If you want it to change, there needs to be a mechanism to roll $$$ over to the next fiscal year without threat of losing it. //

OF course this is the "REAL" problem, not people playing by the rules they are given. The systems both public and private(but pervasive in the public ones) are not set up for the honorable and moral choices we would all like to believe should happen at decision making levels. IF you run a Dept, and you are a moral and super efficient manager, what you get for a reward is a 10% cut from that bare bones your worked on the year before. Those kind of folks that "should" be making decisions, get slapped in the face for doing so. The asshat that inflates his budget, makes sure every penny and more gets spent, they get more resources to work with, especially in lean times when things are getting cut.


So if a behavior is rewarded, is it any surprise that this is the behavior that is prevalent? The really good mangers just need to run their own small businesses's, or larger ones with an iron fist, like the Buffett's, Gate's, Bezo's and other zillionaires we have created in the past 50 years..

This sort of thing doesn't have to result in "waste." Agencies get a budget and plan for their spending requirements, almost always holding something in reserve, because the requirements for a year are not always clear. Military units, for example, get tasked for new missions, or have equipment casualties that were unanticipated, etc. So you get to the end of the year with some amount of unobligated funds. We make a list of "unfunded requirements," i.e. items we didn't buy or budget for, but that we would want now that we have the spare funds.

Agencies or offices or units that spend their end of FY dollars on lobster or other frivolous items are wasting those dollars, but it's sometimes difficult to spend the money you have left over in the time you're given to spend it.

True, it might be nice to give that money back, but that's just not how the system is designed to work. You have to project what you will need, plus some buffer, to ensure you don't run out in contingencies. If you end up not needing the buffer, then you're left with these end of FY purchases. But if you don't plan for the buffer, then you get a decreasing budget allocation, and you end up not being able to fund what you really do need.

Not defending some of the wasteful spending choices, just acknowledging that the system is set up to put agencies in challenging positions with respect to competing for funding.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

I remember 20 years ago I was involved in the budgeting process of a new, but large telecom company. We were getting our budgets together for the coming year so, of course, everyone was conservative on all their estimates. When sales and marketing low ball their numbers, and operations pads their costs you get a business that doesn't look like it's going to make any money.

So the President of the company goes on a begging tour of all the departments earnestly asking for budget cuts and sales commitments. I remember one area of operations took a sober look and cut about 10% of its budget. The rest of the departments literally gave nothing. Finally, the President just had to cut everyone's budget by 10% -- yes, he even cut the area that already gave 10%. All the people around the manager that gave up the 10% voluntarily viewed that move as idiotic -- especially his own employees.

Part of my job is preparing budgets for renovations (on a much smaller scale then you are talking about, rarely exceeding a million dollars).

In my budget, I calculate what I expect the project to cost (which in reality is a slightly padded number, because things never go perfectly to plan). This is what the project should actually cost.

Then, I have a contingency buffer. A 'worst case scenario' fund, what the project could cost. Maybe we find rot in the framing. Maybe there isn't adequate bearing properties in the soil under the addition we are planning, and the cost for building the foundation doubles. Basically we try to address all the things that could pop up, based on scope of the project, age of the house, if there were previous renovations on it, etc.

If I do my job right, we rarely ever need to dip too far in to that contingency. If we don't use it, we don't bill for it. However, if we do need it, it is there and pre-approved by our clients.

I know I am comparing different animals but with regard to government agencies, Why is the contingency budget wrapped up with their essential costs? That just seems like a weird way to budget for unknowns.

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Long Chile was a silly place.

this entire thread is hilariously stupid.

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____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

Look at it this way. Add up the money spent on lobster, crab, (and you can throw in the $293,245 for steaks) and it's less than 0.05% of the $10.7 billion the DoD is spending on the F-35 in FY2019 or about 0.0007% of the entire $686 billion DoD FY2019 budget.

Don't know why anyone should be upset.

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

HER EMAILS!!!1!

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____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

I have no problem if the DoD spend $2.3M on crab for the bases in Alaska. I went to Kodiak once and per pound crab was half the cost of beef.

I don't pretend to be a budgetary specialist, but I expect it's because of the difference between governmental budgets vs private companies billing customers.

Govt agencies are getting a budget allocation from Congress. It's not a bill for services rendered like for your company. We don't go through the year, calculate it all up, and then ask for a check to pay for what we spent. The money is allocated before it's spent, and it's not particularly easy to get more, or to give it back if we don't spend it. It literally takes an act of Congress.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)