Originally posted by crockett
I'm pretty sure they could very easily pay for people to cross check for price gouging in their contracts. In fact they would likely save the US tax payers probably a few billion dollars year. I'd think trading off even 50 million to pay for cross checks would be worth while.
Besides that you don't have to check every single item, they could easily have the same result by checking a random percentage of billed items or services.
If US watchdog groups can find this kind of stuff via freedom of information act.. Well stands pretty good reason that the US Air Force or whom ever could find them as well.
The money save would more than pay for the expensise of cross checking the billing. You think Walmart doesn't cross check it's billing?
You still have no comprehension of the enormity of that task. Just for the F-15 fighter for instance, there are literally thousands and thousands of parts. That's just one piece of equipment the military uses.
Walmart isn't even a valid comparison. Comparing Walmart to the military would be like comparing your local 7-11 to a Super-Walmart. That might not even show the magnitude of difference between Walmart and the military.
I'll use the LAU-114 missile launcher as an example. Each wiring bundle (and there are several) has it's own part number as does each individual wire within that bundle. Each bundle has from 10ish to as many as 50 - 60 wires. (Bear with me on the numbers, it's been a LONG time since I worked on a LAU-114 launcher.) Next we move to electronic components such as resistors, electrical connectors and power supply just to name a couple. Then we have mechanical parts such as the locking mechanism that prevents the missile from just falling off the launcher, safety locks ((both mechanical and electrical) to prevent accidental firing while the aircraft is on the ground. Each panel on the launcher has it's own part number. There are about 10 - 12 different types of screws/fasteners used in the LAU-114. There are literally over 1000 DIFFERENT parts used in the LAU-114. The LAU-114 is just ONE sub-assembly on the F-15. Are you starting to get an idea of the magnitude of the number of parts on an F-15?
Now try to multiply what that by the sheer number of different weapons and equipment the military uses. It's mind boggling. This is what makes it so difficult for the military to avoid items that are being price gouged. This is also why the Air Force ( I assume the other branches have similar programs) relies on each and every person in the chain that orders parts, from the lowly flight line grunt (I was one of those
) to the person pulling the parts from supply to the person ordering parts from the manufacturers and everyone inbetween to watch the prices of said parts and report (via those forms I talked about) prices that appear to be out of whack.
Is it a perfect system? Of course not. Does it help, it sure does. Like I said before, find out how YOU as a taxpayer can report these things. Then do your civic duty and report them.
