Jeff

Good work! Fantastic job.

Good joke, Bob, but I trust you’ll forgive me for not subscribing to this thread.

The President is informed at a briefing from his generals, that two Brazilian soldiers were killed in Iraq that morning.

The President is visibly shaken and refuses to speak.

Finally with a tear in his eye, he slowly asks, “General, how many is a brazillion?”

that means that most of the increase was in contracts – whether parts, or more commonly, people. Many Feds tell me that they routinely manage 15 or 20 contractors’ activities and materials.

think of it this way – 5% waste in a $2,000,000,000,000 budget is $100,000,000,000. And something tells me it is a lot more than 5%.

I know of one where a shipping charge on four pieces of pipe that you could hold in your hand and which you could purchase at any hardware store; was several thousand dollars. But someone in the chain of command (so nobody could be singled out for fault) decided that the items were security sensitive. That while they were to be used in the area in or around California, that for “reasons of security”, they needed to be purchased in Florida, and then driven to the location by the vendor with two people in the vehicle at all times and without stopping except to refuel. Then they had to immediately turn around and drive home without rest at the facility and again without stopping except for fuel until they returned home.

While I can’t see a way to justify a million in shipping charges on a item of this size, given the nature of the decision making process and the expense of dealing with the results I certainly can easily see items of almost no value racking up huge shipping charges.