Chinanews.com, April 25 (Wen Tianxia) Recently, at a hearing in the US Congress, a video of a US congressman holding a bag of small parts allegedly purchased at a price of up to $90,000 and leaving a senior US military official speechless has sparked heated discussions on social media.
Not only did it cost $90,000 to expose the small parts, but it also cost $1,280 for coffee cups, $10,000 for toilet seats, and $90,000 for goats...... A careful examination of the US military "bills" and "black history" have emerged one after another, and the US military spending cannot withstand the investigation at all!
On April 17, local time, U.S. Air Force Secretary Kendall encountered an embarrassing scene at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee of Congress. U.S. Congressman Waltz used a bag of metal bushings as an example to question Kendall about military overspending, and why he had to pay sky-high prices for such non-technical items.
Image source: Screenshot of video on social media platforms
"Mr. Secretary, this is a bag of bushings," Walz said, "This bag of bushings is stamped by a machine, and there is no need for [workers] to have high Chinese, there is no high technology, and it all meets the US FAA specifications." How much do you think the Air Force will spend on this bag of bushings?"
Kendall replied "I don't know," and Waltz went on to not: "$90,000." ”
However, the report pointed out that the actual market price of such a small bag of metal bushings is only about $100.
Waltz used this as a basis to fiercely criticize the Pentagon for wasting money. He said the Pentagon sources the parts directly from the original equipment manufacturers, with no middlemen, which means they should be cheaper than the price of the goods on the shelf, not more expensive. Waltz also said that unjustified military overruns "are bankrupting the U.S. government."
After the video circulated on U.S. social media, it sparked strong criticism from netizens about the U.S. military. Some commented that it was "typical U.S. government waste and fraud." ”
Image source: Screenshot of social media netizen comments
However, these phenomena seem to have long been commonplace for the U.S. government.
As early as 2018, there were reports that the coffee cups used by the U.S. Air Force cost $1,280 each, and this news also made the Air Force a target of public criticism.
Image source: Screenshot of CNN report
Wilson, then secretary of the U.S. Air Force, admitted that more than $320,000 in military spending had been spent on the purchase and replacement of the coffee cup since 2016.
Why spend so much money on a small coffee cup? The US Air Force spokesman explained that the plastic handle of this coffee cup is easy to break when it is dropped, but since there are no parts that can be replaced, the US military "can only" directly purchase new cups.
Of course, this obvious lie can be broken as soon as it is poked.
In response to a related question, Wilson also admitted that spending thousands of dollars on new cups was "completely irresponsible" and that 3D printing would solve the problem. In fact, the U.S. Air Force Rapid Service Office has previously successfully used the 3D printing method to manufacture the handle of a coffee cup at a cost of only 50 cents.
This is not the first time that the US Air Force has experienced sky-high procurement incidents, and similar "capricious" expenses and "fancy corruption" have emerged one after another.
In June 2018, there was also news that the unit purchase price of toilet seats for C-17 and C-5 transport aircraft of the US Air Force was as high as 10,000 US dollars.
According to an internal US government document disclosed by the Washington Post, during the war in Afghanistan, the US military spent nearly $500 million to purchase 20 G222 cargo planes, but only 4 were actually used, and the remaining 16 were idle on the airport runway for a long time. Eventually, these original high-tech products were scrapped and sold for $32,000 each.
The above waste of US military spending is at least traceable, and in fact, due to the lack of supervision, the US military still has a large amount of money that is still missing.
According to the British newspaper The Independent, during the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. military spent $6 million to "airlift nine goats from Italy to Afghanistan." And the American media "searched all over Afghanistan" and could not find the shadow of these 9 goats.
According to the explanation of the U.S. military, these nine goats were introduced to improve the breed of Afghan goats, and it is a project that will be of great help to the locals.
Image source: Screenshot of the report of the British "Independent".
However, according to The Independent, the Pentagon never oversaw the project to find out how many jobs it created, how much wool it produced, or whether the goats actually ended up on the dinner table......
"We don't know. John Sopko, special inspector general of the U.S. government's Afghanistan reconstruction operation, said.
In fact, the findings suggest that the goats may have been eaten...... The $6 million project "was also never completed."
Sopko later admitted that many similar projects had suffered from mismanagement or no management at all, and that they were "wasted and abused."
One of the reasons for this phenomenon is that the U.S. Department of Defense has not been properly regulated on the whereabouts of its funds.
Data map: Pentagon.
Since the early 90s of the 20th century, US federal law requires mandatory audits of all government agencies. Due to problems such as the large organizational structure, the audit of the US Department of Defense was delayed until 2018, and only "incremental improvements" were made each year.
And from 2018 to 2023, the US Department of Defense has failed annual audits for six consecutive years.
Worse still, the U.S. government still has no bottom line to connive and is unrelenting when it comes to spending money on the military.
Of the $886 billion defense budget for fiscal year 2024, $842 billion is allocated to the U.S. Department of Defense. The defense budget for fiscal year 2024 will account for about 3.2% of U.S. GDP in 2024, the highest percentage in peacetime.
After failing to pass the annual audit in 2023, the U.S. Department of Defense said that the Pentagon is working to complete "audit improvements", but it will take years to achieve its goals. However, the Pentagon's so-called rectification is nothing more than a distant promise.
Perhaps, the bag of "$90,000" parts in Waltz's hand is nothing at all, but in the "wanton squandering" of the US military, how many $90,000 have never been exposed?