How much did the government pay for a hammer?
By the mid-1980s, the spending became a scandal when the Project on Government Oversight reported that the Pentagon had vastly overpaid for a wide variety of items, most notoriously by paying $435 for a hammer, $600 for a toilet seat, and $7,000 for an aircraft coffee maker.
How much does a hammer cost in the military?
The Pentagon’s $435 hammer – The Washington Post.
How much did the government pay for toilet seats?
And now, under the Presidency of Donald Trump, over 30 years later, the overpriced airborne toilet seat has gained altitude. Instead of 640 dollars, the new price tag was reported by the Air Force to be 10,000 dollars, and that’s for the lid only.
What is the US defense budget?
$754 billion
The United States spent $754 billion on national defense during fiscal year (FY) 2021 according to the Office of Management and Budget, which amounted to 11 percent of federal spending; that percentage was lower than the 15 percent of the budget spent on defense in the four years before the pandemic.
What are the five largest federal expenses?
What are the five largest federal expenses? health and human services, department of defense, treasury department, department of agriculture, and department of education.
How much does the average American pay towards welfare?
The average taxpayer contributes just $10 for public housing, $16 for heating assistance for low-income and poor people, and $78 to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (welfare).
What percent of U.S. taxes go to military?
In short, roughly 20 percent of the federal budget is dedicated to defense and security, which can be understood as the percent of tax dollars spent on the military. But if you are interested in this topic, make sure you read until the very end of the article to find out everything there is to know!
Is the $600 hammer really an icon of Pentagon incompetence?
Ever since the Defense Department procurement scandals of the 1980s, the $600 hammer has been held up as an icon of Pentagon incompetence.
Did the Pentagon pay to disemminate videos during the Iraq War?
The Pentagon hired a UK-based PR firm to produce and disemminate videos during the Iraq War A former contractor for a UK-based public relations firm says that the Pentagon paid more than half a billion dollars for the production and dissemination of fake Al-Qaeda videos that portrayed the insurgent group in a negative light.
Is the Pentagon perpetrating unlawful accounting fraud?
Now, a Nation investigation has uncovered an explanation for the Pentagon’s foot-dragging: For decades, the DoD’s leaders and accountants have been perpetrating a gigantic, unconstitutional accounting fraud, deliberately cooking the books to mislead the Congress and drive the DoD’s budgets ever higher, regardless of military necessity.
How much did the hammer cost?
So the hammer, originally $15, picked up the same amount of research and development overhead-$420-as each of the highly technical components, recalled retired procurement official LeRoy Haugh. (Later news stories inflated the $435 figure to $600.)