Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Pentagon Spent $5 Billion on Weapons on the Eve of the Shutdown



The Pentagon pumped billions of dollars into contractors' bank accounts on the eve of the U.S. government's shutdown that saw 400,000 Defense Department employees furloughed.
All told, the Pentagon awarded 94 contracts yesterday evening on its annual end-of-the-fiscal-year spending spree, spending more than five billion dollars on everything from robot submarines to Finnish hand grenades and a radar base mounted on an offshore oil platform. To put things in perspective, the Pentagon gave out only 14 contracts on September 3, the first workday of the month.
Here are some of the more interesting purchases from Monday's dollar-dump.

 As of Friday, nearly 48 million Americans receiving food stamps are set to see their benefits reduced.

First up: the Defense Logistics Agency, the Pentagon branch that provides the armed services with things like fuel and spare parts. DLA has the honor of dropping the most cash in one contract last night with the $2.5 billion award it gave to aircraft engine-maker Pratt & Whitney for "various weapons system spare parts" used by the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Other highlights of DLA's last-minute spree included: $65 million for military helmets from BAE Systems, $24 million for "traveling wave tubes" to amplify radio signals from Thales, $17 million for liquid nitrogen, $15 million for helium and $19 million on cots. Yes, cots.
Then came the Navy. The sea service spent hundreds of millions of dollars on 31 contracts buying everything from high-tech Finnish hand grenades to janitorial services.
The service's biggest contracts were aimed at protecting ships from underwater attack. It gave Lockheed Martin a total of $139 million for sonar that allows Arleigh Burke-class destroyers to detect submarines and underwater mines. The Navy is also buying $40 million worth of hand grenades made in Vihtavuori, Finland, that allow "users to choose the level of blast needed for the situation." Another $18 million is going to Phoenix International Holdings to operate a robot submarine called the Submarine Rescue Diving and Recompression System that can save people from disabled subs sitting up to 2,000 feet underwater.
Not everything the Navy spent its end of year cash on was high tech, however. The service also gave $64 million contract to build a new fuel pier in Point Loma, Calif. It also added $9 million onto an existing $138 million contract for janitors at Navy medical centers in San Diego.
.The automatic cut which is scheduled for Nov. 1, as a temporary boost from the 2009 stimulus bill expires, will reduce around $5 billion from federal food-stamp spending over the coming year. 

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) currently costs about $80 billion per year and provides food aid to 14 percent of all US households. 

As of September 2012, 47.7 million Americans were receiving an average of $133 per month in food assistance. Food stamp recipients are mostly children, the elderly and disabled people. 

The Washington Post reported that the number of Americans on food stamps could drop even further as Congress and various states consider further changes to the program. 

According to the newspaper, the House and Senate will resume this week their arguments over a five-year farm bill which includes the food-stamp program. 

The Senate approved a farm bill that would make changes to the food-stamp program, saving $4.5 billion over 10 years. 

But the House bill would remove 3.8 million people from the food-stamp rolls over the upcoming year only and take an additional 1.8 million people per year off food stamps for the next decade. 

It is not clear how many of these cuts will get passed into law nut event if Congress doesn’t pass further cuts some states could act on their own to restrict eligibility. 

In 2013, according to the Post, 44 states qualified for federal waivers that would allow more able-bodied adults to receive food stamps if unemployment in the area was particularly high. Some states are planning to stop asking for waivers. 

Kansas’ waiver is expected to expire at the start of October. That could affect some 20,000 residents. The Oklahoma state, Ohio and Washington are also planning to enact similar restrictions. 

The CEO of the Food Bank for New York City has warned that the cuts would end in riots across the US. Margaret Purvis said that riots always begin when people cannot afford to eat food. 

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