And pretty soon you're talking about real money.  If Pentagon overspending and misspending weren't so good for so many people, Scot Paltrow's piece in Conde Nast Portfolio would be ringing alarm bells all over the country.  Turns out that the Defense Department's accounting system is so outdated, cobbled together, and ...

The New York Times’s C.J. Chivers has an extremely unsettling blockbuster on federal procurement in the Army. The Army Sustainment Command needed to supply weapons ammunition to the Afghanistan government in their fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. So it gave $300 million to AEY, ...

Medicare is often touted as the system that doesn't overpay, but Charles Duhigg of the New York Times has a different story.  Medicare overpays for a much-needed product that is, however, in plentiful supply:  oxygen.  But when Medicare officials and politicians approach suppliers to lower prices, these companies insinuate to ...

The New York Times's Philip Taubman here brings to light a stunning story of waste and mismanagement at the National Reconnaissance Office, which contracted for a new generation of spy satellites with Boeing beginning in 1999.  Four billion dollars later the program was stopped as future cost projections ...

Prominent U.S. food producers may be involved in price-fixing and monopolizing contracts for feeding the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The Department of Justice and Department of Defense are investigating what may be "hundreds of millions of dollars" in violations.

Mark Thompson of Time reports on a $55 billion mistake -- the Marine Corps "new" combat plane that has been under development since the mid-1980s.  The plane has led to 30 deaths in the testing phase alone, and it is now destined for our troops to use in Iraq.  Thompson ...

Excellent reporting helps the public understand where the money goes in government. In the case of the president’s helicopters, it appears there is nowhere to go but up. Jonathan Karp and Scot Paltrow of the Wall Street Journal raise issues (see their article here) about Marine One, the presidential helicopter, that should concern taxpayers, journalists, and public servants. The Navy is ordering twenty-three of these aircraft from Lockheed. Last time I checked we had only one president (two if you count Cheney). 

As the new Congress begins to catch in stride, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) is proposing legislation to deal with unreasonable profiteering from Iraq reconstruction efforts.

Stiff criminal penalties for contractor abuse will be included in Mr. Leahy’s bill, which the Senator says will curb gouging, fraud, and other ...

Just as you can’t have too much chocolate around the house, there can’t be too much procurement oversight.

The Forum applauds the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) for calling for closer and more effective management of the procurement process.

I suspect more organizations will make such a plea.  ...

The drumbeat continues.  Personnel.  Procurement.  If it’s not one, it’s the other.   Yesterday, we shared an article about personnel management.  Today, we read more about procurement weaknesses and shortcomings which impair our government’s effectiveness and lose oodles of money.

One of our loyal readers, Joe, weighed in yesterday about ...