eneral had filed complaints with the OMB concerning fraudulent behavior in the HUD program. It was not until the scandal made the evening news that the OMB investigated into the $2 billion dollar scandal caused by influence, peddling, and greed. The following information was uncovered by the Committee of Government Operations (1993): h Ignoring early reports of significant failures the Defense Department spent $4 billion on a defense avionics package for the B-1 bomber that was eventually canceled. h The Department of the Treasury awarded a contract for off the shelf, commercially available equipment and services to a vendor whose price was half a billion dollars higher than the runner up. h The Pentagon awarded a contract for its Reserve Component Automation System to a contractor whose $1.6 billion bid was hundreds of millions of dollars higher than other bidders. h The Federal Aviation Administration was poised to purchase $1 billion in computer services that it did not need, before the Government Operations Committee intervened. h NASA, which spends more than $14 billion in procurement each year, has such a shortage in procurement resources that it faces excessive subcontractor profits, overpayments for services, low productivity from contractor employees, poor technical oversight, the payment of inordinately high award fees for suspect contract performance, and a host of other problems. h The Pentagons failure to monitor problems encountered on the A-12 aircraft contract resulted in a schedule that was so far delayed and a cost that was so inflated that the entire system had to be cancelled at a cost of $2.6 billion dollars. The only thing the public got for its money was six sets of sophisticated drawings.(p. 7) Taxes 11 If the federal government was a bank, it would have gone under years ago. Billions of dollars are lost ever year from its nearly $1 trillion dollars in loan guarantees. Over 20 percent, or $45 billion dollars, in ...
