五角大楼采购的波音E3 侦查机用的垃圾桶, 五万多美元一只
The Pentagon’s $52,000 trash can With military spending at record highs, many contractors have hiked the cost of relatively simple items. 6park.comJUNE 20, 2023 6park.comUntil 2010, Boeing charged an average of $300 for a trash container used in the E-3 Sentry, a surveillance and radar plane based on the 707 civilian airliner. When the 707 fell out of use in the United States, the trash can was no longer a “commercial” item, meaning that Boeing was not obligated to keep its price at previous levels, according to a weapons industry source who spoke to RS. 6park.comIn 2020, the Pentagon paid Boeing over $200,000 for four of the trash cans, translating to roughly $51,606 per unit. In a 2021 contract, the company charged $36,640 each for 11 trash containers, resulting in a total cost of more than $400,000. The apparent overcharge cost taxpayers an extra $600,000 between the two contracts. 6park.comIn another case, Lockheed Martin hiked the price of an electrical conduit for the P-3 plane as much as 14 fold, costing the Pentagon an additional $133,000 between 2008 and 2015. 6park.comJamaica Bearings — a company that distributes parts manufactured by other firms — sold the Department of Defense 13 radio filters that had once cost $350 each for nearly $49,000 per unit in 2022. The apparent markup cost taxpayers more than $600,000 in extra fees. 6park.comThe examples revealed here represent only a small portion of what experts say is a pattern of contractors overcharging DoD for a wide range of parts and weapons systems, a practice that reduces military readiness and drives up spending. A recent investigation by 60 Minutes highlighted rampant price gouging in the arms industry, including one case in which Boeing overcharged taxpayers by more than half a billion dollars for missiles used in the Patriot missile defense system. 6park.comThe investigation also revealed that Raytheon Technologies had raised the price of Stinger missiles from $25,000 to more than $400,000 per unit. “Even accounting for inflation and some improvements, that’s a seven-fold increase,” Shay Assad, a former Pentagon acquisitions official, told 60 Minutes.
|