A while back, I met someone at a party, an engineer, who told me he worked for a defense contractor that thrives on earmarks. As he described it, so far none of the products he'd worked on was actually being used, and many of them didn't even work. He told me that two things happen after an earmarked project gets underway: either no one pays attention, in which case the company never bothers to finish a working prototype, but gets paid anyway once the paperwork gets filled out, or someone actually monitors the project, in which case a (barely) working, but useless, prototype is built that sits on a shelf somewhere because the Pentagon didn't want it to begin with. Not suprisingly, this engineer wasn't enjoying his job and was actively seeking employment elsewhere.
The big caveat is that this was just "cocktail party" conversation, I can't vouch for the accuracy of the anecdote, and I don't even remember the guy's name, or exactly where I met him. But as criticism earmarks continues to resonate, I can't help thinking about the possibility that we're spending who-knows-how-much money a year on defense earmarks for completely useless products, and that whole companies are thriving on this basis.
Republican Rep. John Campbell, an Orange County, Calif., auto dealer and five-year state legislator who is serving his first full year in Congress, is a rare ally of Flake. Campbell began the debate by challenging a $2 million no-bid award to the Sherwin-Williams paint company for a "paint shield" against "microbial threats." The Pentagon did not want this, but Murtha delivered his usual contemptuous retort on earmarks: "We don't apologize for them because we think the members know as much about what goes on their district . . . as [do] the bureaucrats in the Defense Department."
Flake then forced votes on Murtha pet projects — starting with "something called the Concurrent Technologies Corp." in Johnstown. In the brief time at his disposal, Flake tried to explain to an inattentive House how the company survives as an "incubator" for earmarks "just by getting more earmarks." He next challenged a $39 million earmark for the National Drug Intelligence Center in Johnstown, which the Pentagon does not need or want. Murtha was coldly dismissive, denying the reality that these no-bid awards do not allow taxpayers to recapture any benefits that the corporations derive from federal expenditures.
I also have no doubt that academia spends enormous amounts of money on unnecessary and objectively worthless programs (women's studies, sociology, the MLA, etc etc).
I also have no doubt that the art world spends enormous amounts of money on utterly worthless nonsense (who's that British guy who chopped up a cow?).
I also have no doubt that Ford spends enormous amounts of money on research that doesn't pan out.
I also have no doubt that Microsoft spends enormous amounts of money on people, programs, or research that ends up being utterly worthless.
I also have no doubt... oh, you get the idea.
Sk
Indeed, several firms and a number of university programs have no productive purpose, they lack either a needed technological advance or an economic comparative advantage. One university program director admits such to me, but contends that there is value in maintaining potential capacity, much as the aerospace firms and shipyards contend. He does not address, however, how grant-writing skills are to be valued when there is no underlying research of value.
The contracting firms, however, do tend include on their staff a high percentage of ordinary citizens who seem to freely choose to exercise their right to contribute to the political figures of their choice.
However, what this anecdote tells me is the guy really has no clue how the funding process works. It's not terribly complicated, but he's looking at it purely from his own perspective and not the perspective of the environment he works in. There's no reason he has more or less guarantee he develops something that doesn't work. But, he has to guarantee that there is a need for what he does make that does work. The two are not mutually guaranteed. So yeah, there's a lot of waste, but that waste serves an equally important role in the big scheme of things. So, my bottom line is the guy needs to quit whining so much and spend his money more. I go into a lot more detail in my link up there, just didn't feel like writing a book for a comment.
If we privatized the DOD, I bet they'd get more done with less.
We should tax districts by how much pork gets sent back home. If District A gets 7% of revenues then taxpayers in District A pay more federal taxes. It's a way to reign in the free-for-all that's going on now in congress.
Yep, Microsoft and universities and big companies have inefficiencies. It's just that they aren't necessarily playing with our money when they screw up. After all, you have options; you don't get a choice about paying taxes.
I suspect it'd have held its own in air combat against the Soviets, provided it had enough fighter support to keep missile-firing aircraft at bay. At gun range, it could turn inside any fighter, and you wouldn't want to get tapped by that 30 mm gun.
The jarheads require their pilots go through the Infantry Officers Basic course, to make clear their responsibilities.
David, I don't think I am. You're talking about a worker, not the person who gets the work. The person who gets the work has a different set of criteria than the person who does the work. He apparently doesn't have a clue what all was involved in the big picture. No agency puts out an earmark for something they don't want or need. They put out a request for a bazillion things, some become desirable, some don't. Priorities change, staffs change, and companies have to guess at what someone two years from now would have wanted now. The Warthog served no purpose the military when it was proposed. At the a later point in time, it had a purpose. Now, it may be obsolete. Funding cycles are not on-demand and can sometimes take years to get straightened out. What that guy is working on had a purpose most likely at some point in time. Just because the Pentagon doesn't want it now doesn't mean they never did, or won't in the future. It just strikes me as odd this lowly worker seems to know what the Pentagon wants, Congress wanted, his bosses wanted, etc.. And came to the conclusion that no one ever wanted it, no one ever asked for it, but it will be paid for. My gut instinct is this guy is relying on heresay to make his proclamations to the world. And, in most cases, this type of "information" leads to a lot of rhetoric and very little recourse because once people did into the issue they find out it's not quite the way it was presented. There is waste, but you'll just have to read my post to understand why a lot of people don't consider thay much an issue. The why's of federal waste would go way off-topic I would think by digging into macro-economics. But, the bottom line picture is your anecdotal acquaintance is part of a big picture he doesn't get at all. And if it bums him out that much, probably doesn't need to be a part of it. Fed waste is more than welcomed here. We'd spend it gleefully and with great pride and joy knowing it's stimulating the economy and most likely coming from areas of the country that don't need it nearly as much. So, please, if this process bothers him that much, send his work here. We do need it.
Since underbidding contracts no longer worked [and Lockheed was by no means the only company that played the cost-overrun game], the rabid hunger for tax money morphed into earmarks. So my question is: Who represents the taxpayers?
I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet I assure others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means -- except by getting off his back.
~ Leo Tolstoy
I doubt that if you added up all of those women studies programs that they would amount to tens or hundreds of billions of dollars ever year. Just sayin . . .
Q: What would you have if you had 4 congressmen sitting in jail for malfeasance in office?
A: A good start.
Do you see all medical research as "thrown away money," perhaps because you think we know all that we will ever know, or at least all that we need to know? Or is it just federally funded medical research that you view that way?
The best earmarks are for R&D or even procurement of stuff (equipment) that couldn't be addressed in the budget process (new developments, political barriers, etc.).
Some scrupulous contractors work really hard to identify unfunded DoD needs and try to get earmarks for those projects. Agile companies have developed and fielded equipment really needed by soldiers and airmen in the field and sailors at sea, but missed by the usual channels.
Believe it or not, the Lockheeds and Raytheons (just picking on them because they’re household names), as directed by their DoD customers, sometimes don't realize, or do realize but don't pursue, needed R&D or procurement. It might be a capability gap or simply that that sort of work isn’t profitable for the giants.
(And yes, the Lockheeds and the Raytheons do go after earmarks, and quite successfully.).
Other times, things like entrenched political interests (e.g., Naval Shipyards) make installation of new equipment extremely expensive. For example, a small company can usually retrofit new equipment on a Navy warship for half the cost of the government-run Shipyard...but the "official" budget process favors the Shipyards and the DoD program managers are basically ordered (by Congress) to give the installations to the shipyards. Through the magic of earmarks, more units are installed for less, and a few units are installed at the shipyard. I don't know how the sausage factory on the hill views this. The Lockheeds and Raytheons like to have more units installed, but don’t dare cross the senators and congressmen from states with Naval Shipyards. So they’ll usually give the smaller company a quiet boost on the hill.
On the other hand, unscrupulous contractors, large and small, view earmarks as a continual cash-cow. Once the earmark is in place, the DoD is under intense pressure from the sponsoring member to spend it on the contractor that "bought and paid" for it, regardless of performance or need. Once a senator/congressman is in your pocket, you control that revenue stream into the DoD.
A scrupulous (wise?) contractor will work with the DoD customer to modify the requirements of the program so that they stay within the verbage of the appropriations bill, but results in something the DoD really wants. If you make something especially good on an earmark, the odds are a few scraps of program dollars will come your way the next year. It also helps when the troops/sailors are ecstatic about the quality of your product and pressure the program office to keep you funded.
An unscrupulous contractor simply tells the DoD that the earmark is “his” money, and that he won’t go after more money on that line item the next year unless the DoD plays ball and supports what he wants. Remember, there’s a DoD program manager with a budget line, and all of them want to be in charge of more money, even if it comes with strings. It all comes with strings, anyway -- most of each budget line is spoken for by the Raytheons and Lockheeds before it ever gets to the DoD.
In the end, it isn’t really any different than competing for program dollars (i.e., non-earmarked) money. It is just as dirty or clean, it is just as wasted or effectively used.
I’ve never seen or heard of a fair competition from the DoD. Earmarks are just another way of wiring the system to make sure you get the contract. Good guys do good things, other guys don’t.
I think it was the Air Force, not the Pentagon, that didn't want the Warthog. The Army certainly did want it - but the AF won't let them get fixed-wing combat aircraft, even for missions the AF hates to fly, and so the Army winds up using helicopters where slow, tough, and ugly airplanes like the Warthog would serve better.
I'm beginning to wonder if separating the AF from the Army was a good idea in the first place - and I served in the AF for nine years. The AF didn't like taking the Warthog in low enough to use the tank-killing cannon that it's built around, so they spent a bundle equipping it with missiles. Then in Gulf War I, a Warthog pilot launched a couple of missiles from a mile up, and they flew true and hot - right into a pair of British APC's. About a dozen of our allies dead because the AF commanders are afraid to send men to fly where they can see what they're shooting at. I emphasize commanders, because the AF pilots I knew had nerve to spare...
As for whether the Warthog was usable against the Soviets, I heard that it was quite survivable in war games against an AF squadron trained to simulate Soviet aircraft and tactics. It can turn on a dime, and that cannon should be effective against airplanes at a range of several miles. Missiles might down the Warthog from greater range, but long range launches give the pilot a good chance to find terrain that blocks the missile. I don't think there's been an air-to-air missile even thought of yet with the intelligence to stay above the trees when a straight line course goes through them, let alone fly over a hill and re-acquire the target on the other side.
The amount of review, auditing, paperwork, etc was astounding. We spent so much time proving we really did what we said, really spent what we spent, and that our product actually performed, that it defied all common sense. Not that I object to that kind of review - obviously from this story, we need more of it in some areas. But on my projects, it was far beyond a common sense amount of it.
I say with very little facetiousness that we had to charge 5x what the project could have been done for, in order to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that we weren't overcharging by 20%.
In my Congressional tenure, I worked on a fair number of interesting and seemingly beneficial DOD earmarks, including the development of a synthetic blood substitute, a state-of-the-art metal that is harder than steel but more malleable than most others, a VSTOL plane, and an automated document scanning and translation system. Most of these were desired by the DOD or should have been.
However, I also had to deal with earmark requests that were cool, but unjustifiable. My best example is the watercar -- a convertable sportscar that could pop out skis and function like a motorboat. A sweet toy, but a little hard to justify for the Marines.
Finally, there were the patently insane earmark requests, like the homepathic remedy for smallpox and anthrax.