Study: Hundreds of Fraudulent Defense Contractors Are Still Getting Contracts
This reports comes out while members of the congressional supercommittee are pissing and moaning about how we can't possibly cut any more money from the Defense department. These numbers seem to indicate otherwise:
How often does the Pentagon award contracts to defense companies that have already been proven to be defrauding taxpayers? A report the Department of Defense did at the request of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) reveals an answer that should make Washington very uncomfortable.
The report, released today, showed that hundreds of defense contractors found guilty of civil fraud received more than $1.1 trillion in defense contracts since 2001. The study took into account only companies that were found to have defrauded taxpayers of more than $1 million dollars.
More than $573 billion went directly to companies that were guilty of defrauding taxpayers, and when you factor in the awards that went to the parent companies of those contractors, the total is $1.1 trillion. Of that $573 billion, more than two-thirds—$398 billion—went to companies after they had been found guilty of fraud.
Companies convicted of “hard-core criminal fraud” received $255 million in contracts, $33 million of it after conviction.
Some of the country’s biggest defense contractors were implicated. “The ugly truth is that virtually all of the major defense contractors in this country for years have been engaged in systemic fraudulent behavior, while receiving hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money,” said Sanders. According to the report:
Lockheed Martin in 2008 paid $10.5 million to settle charges that it defrauded the government by submitting false invoices on a multi-billion dollar contract connected to the Titan IV space launch vehicle program. That didn’t seem to sour the relationship between Lockheed and the Defense Department, which gave Lockheed $30.2 billion in contracts in fiscal year 2009, more than ever before.
In another case, Northrop Grumman paid $62 million in 2005 to settle charges that it “engaged in a fraud scheme by routinely submitting false contract proposals,” and “concealed basic problems in its handling of inventory, scrap and attrition.” Despite the serious charges of pervasive and repeated fraud, Northrop Grumman received $12.9 billion in contracts the next year, 16 percent more than the year before.
"too big to fail".
but for some reason he doesn't mention the 5500 Mercenaries (Blackwater/Xe/Triple Canopy etc.) who will be staying on for "training purposes".
Maybe that's cause Eric Prince moved his operations from North Carolina to Qatar?? So now Xe is "not" American??
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/american-tro...
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
Let the mercenaries stay.
It'll help weed out the trigger happy religious fanatics like Prince.
details
The very definition of 'foreign combatants.' Don't we torture and execute those as a matter of principle?
That someday we'll read of Eric Prince being killed in combat.
My other dream is to see the following headline:
"Grover Norquist Found Drowned in Bathtub".
Never happen. Prince is always careful to make sure he's as far away from real fighting as possible.
swept under the rug
Since corporations are people, let's have Texas execute a few them. That'll cut down on the fraud.
corporations are 'people'...with Limited Liability! How nice and convenient.
ROFLMAO!
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
You've got to love it (if you're a corrupt business) when the only punishment for ripping us off is a fine that's pennies on the dollar, plus you get to keep ripping us off.
Sounds like the Holder plan for the banks.
Yay.
you gotta break some eggs, you want to make a really big omelet..............
Just another avenue of transferring money from the poor to the very rich. Nothing to see here.
I need some of that cash. I'm thinking of creating my own defense contractor. Nangleator-Martin will seek funds to develop the new "Thrustmaster General," a devastating weapon that destroys distant brown people by the thousands, and obliterates birth control within U.S. borders while sexually exciting its female victims. A major side effect of employing this weapon is a doubling of penis size of the commanding general. In fact, even approving R&D money for the project will increase libido and staying power.
Think the Pentagon will be interested?
that eisenhower guy was an idiot.
Im sure glad that eliminating oversight and regulation has saved those companies so much money.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
Can we assume charges will be filed now and we'll try to bring these war profiteers and fraudsters to justice? No? Okay, sorry I asked.
Shh! Don't make them mad!
The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
Only an alert and knowledgeable citizen can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goal.
How long ago now... did Eisenhower warn us about the military industrial complex.
I guess we better get on it!
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
about that whisper from the underground, oh wait, he was the president back when presidents were just taking a little cream off the top instead of being full on puppets.
Does anyone with half a brain review payouts to military contractors? Any company worth a shit has basic controls in place; the contractor does not start work until they are issued a PO; upon receipt of an invoice, it is compared line item by line item to PO's or contracts. In some cases, if they are a dollar off, they don't pay it until the descrepancy is resolved.
If everything matches and then it's noticed that the taxpayers paid $1,000 for a coffee pot, you go back to the original PO and question the person who signed it.
I know we're talking about huge dollars here, but honestly, simple controls ought to help fix this kind of stuff.
Has anyone on this blog ever worked in Procurement at the Pentagon? Do they just send out checks left and right to whoever submits an invoice in whatever format? Could I submit an invoice for a million dollars on a napkin for some service that can't be verified and they would pay it?
don't really need all the protection of a military budget larger than the next 20 budgets combined...
perhaps the 1% does though....
I am an appeals officer for family child care providers who participate on the federal USDA Food Program. If a provider fails to enter daily menu/meal counts on two separate days over a 2 year period, she will be kicked off the Food Program for seven years! So, low income child care providers get the death penalty for minor record keeping infractions, but defense contractors can break the law without consequence. What a country.
Tom Copeland
people (especially conservatives) will bitch and moan over small shit that doesn't amount to anything in the larger scheme of things, but they turn a blind eye to the shit that goes on in the Pentagon?
I'll ask again, how on earth does anyone get away with submitting billions of dollars in 'false' invoices to the Defense Department, or any company for that matter??
Let's follow the lead of the USDA Food Program...........the first time you're caught doing it, you can't even bid on a contract for seven years!
and social welfare is bad unless it enriches a republican.
Republicans are liars and simply cannot be trusted.
is called a kleptocracy.
It's mot like they were wasting the money trying to educate kids or build crumbling bridges here at home.
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
Comments are closed on this entry