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M iriam P emberton
G abriel I. R ossman
by
and
committee in charge of spend-
ing, from steering a contract to
his district in Kentucky to buy
$17,000 drip pans for Black
Hawk helicopters.
$17,000 whats? You know,
pans that catch leaking trans-
mission fluid. As The New York
Here's a milestone of sorts. In
July, for the first time since 1998, /
the House o f Representatives
voted to maintain the current
military budget rather than in-
.
crease Pentagon spending. It's t h e K l T l d f O U
on. So why did they axe this
particular sweet deal? Maybe
they were a little worried that it
would become the next $800
toilet seat.
Back in the 1980s, this fixture
on a Navy plane — we're not
talking the price of a toilet mind
you, just the seat — epitomized
military waste. As a symbol the
Other egregious examples emerged:
a $436 claw hammer that looked like
C O U ld p i C K
U p a t th e
the first step toward bringing the
budget down.
w ithin the bill, which included
more than $600 billion for the
military, the House embedded a
hardware store for $15, and a $7,622
J
coffee maker before espresso bars
»
v
r
became commonplace, to name a few.
few gestures toward fiscal san-
ity. Most important was the de-
cision o f 89 Republicans to join
most Democrats in shaving a
billion bucks off the budget that
House Republican leaders had
proposed. That's mostly a sym-
bolic move in a budget o f this
size, but worth celebrating nev-
ertheless.
Less publicized was a much
smaller gesture. Congress voted
to block Rep. Hal Rogers (R-
K Y), the chair o f the House
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ™
Times reported in May, other public could really visualize, its
Army helicopters do fine with a discovery expedited contracting
$2,500 model. Congress ruled reform . O ther egregious ex
that the chair of the spending amples emerged: a $436 claw
committee couldn't reward a fre- hammer that looked like the kind
quent campaign contributor with you could pick up at the hard-
a contract that somebody else ware store for $15, and a $7,622
could fulfill at 1 /8 th the cost to coffee maker before espresso
the taxpayer.
bars became commonplace, to
Rogers' drip pans deal would name a few.
have cost about $5 million over
A pan that catches transmis-
three years — chum p change in sion fluid might not trigger the
the budget Congress was voting same outrage as that pricey toi
V
let seat. But with the nation ca
reening toward the edge of a
fiscal cliff, the timing is right. As
conservative lawmakers make
speeches in the coming months
about their belief that Pentagon
spending must be preserved at
the expense of everything else,
the $17,000 drip pan offers a
handy rebuttal.
So Congress tried to head this
particular program off before it
got too much publicity. Of course,
at the same time it rejected other
modest, sane, cost-cutting ges
tu re s, su ch as n ix in g th e
Pentagon's $72 million advertis
ing budget for NASCAR races.
We won't get too carried away
with this glimmer of hope that a
sane approach to military spend
ing is around the comer. Still, 89
Republicans and most Demo
crats did say no to Rep. Rogers,
the "Prince of Pork." And for the
first time since before the 9/11
terrorist attacks, Congress voted
to trim its leaders' aspirations for
the overall military budget. It's a
start.
Miriam Pemberton is a Re
search Fellow at the Institute
fo r Policy Studies. Gabriel
Rossman is a student at
Wesleyan University.