Forget the Body Armor...How About a Banjo?

Last night while searching for a basic list of websites in the .gov domain (a top-level domain restricted for use by U.S. governmental entities only), I ran into a roadblock when the only really relevant site I could find was the official "dotGov" domain registration website. Once you get past the home page of this site, it seems that the only other pages a normal browser are allowed to access are the registration procedure overview and eligibility requirements. Upon clicking on any other links, you are directed to a page with the following message:


Warning! Use of this site is restricted!

This computer system is for the use of the United States Government. Unauthorized access, or access which exceeds authorized access is punishable under 18 USC 1030.


Below this warning is a radio button that simply says "Agree." Since I had no desire to have my front door broken down by special intelligence police or something, I chose not to click the button and was forced to abandon this particular line of research. Instead, I turned to searching for budget figures for federal spending on website maintenance, etc. This led me to an extremely fascinating website--USAspending.gov. According to the "About This Site" page, the Federal Funding Accountabililty and Transparency Act of 2006 "requires a single searchable website, accessible by the public for free" that includes detailed information on all Federal awards (both contracts and "assistance" type awards)--the name of the company/entity receiving the award, amount of award. The data can be drilled down all the way to the individual transaction level! The page also indicates that most of the data found on the website comes from the Federal Procurement Data System and the Federal Assistance Award Data System.

I only had enough time to poke around a bit on the site, but did so for long enough to realize that one could spend years looking through all the data here, even though it only appears to go back as far as 2000. You can sort data by agency initiating the award, contractor/entity receiving the award, awards by state, awards by congressional district, etc. I concentrated on the federal contract awards data and didn't spend much time on the assistance side; for reference, the site's Glossary defines a contract as "an agreement between the federal government and a private entity, for-profit or non-profit, to execute mandated services for a fee for the federal government." Since "Assistance" is a wholly separate categorization of data here, I take "Contracts" to mean "stuff the government buys," whether it be furniture, professional services, office supplies, etc. that are (supposedly) necessary for operation.

Here's just a sampling of the interesting stuff you can find on the site...according to the "Awards by cong. district of contractor" page, Rep. James P. Moran of Virginia's 8th District wins the award for dollars awarded to contractors in his district by far--$136.770 billion total from FY 2004-2008 (second place, for reference, is also from Virginia--Frank R. Wolf of the 10th District--with $49.333 billion). I suppose this isn't particularly surprising given that Virginia's 8th District encompasses a large portion of the northern suburbs of Washington, D.C., most notably the city of Alexandria.

Anyway, what caught my attention on this particular initial visit was the search "By product or service provided" functionality. The overview page for this data sort shows a chart of federal contracts awarded by product or service category (professional/admin services, utilities, motor vehicles, etc.) individually by FY from 2000-3Q of 2008 and also includes a combined total over this period. So how much of our hard-earned taxpayer money does the federal government feel it necessary to spend on purchases of items or services required for its operation (remember--this doesn't include any money the federal government awards as "assistance"--loans, grants, etc.)? Well, according to the chart, the federal government spent $436.363 BILLION on federal contract awards alone in FY 2007.

As I read this for the first time, I horrified my poor little dog with the strange noises I made as I half-choked on the drink of water I had just taken. $436 billion dollars!!!??? Sure, I understand that the federal government needs to spend money in order to conduct daily "office" business--office supplies, computers, janitorial supplies, utility bills, maintenance, furniture, etc.--just like any other business. Still, $436 billion dollars seemed like an awful lot and as I scrolled down the page, I became a bit more suspicious of some of these figures.

As a shining example of the federal government's inability to show restraint on spending despite our $162 billion budget deficit in FY 2007 (projected to increase to $410 billion in FY 2008) and total federal debt of $9.5 trillion, I will highlight just one category of contracts awarded (there are 103 categories total)--"Musical instruments, phonographs, and home-type radios." According to the chart, this category ranks 99th out of the 103 categories in total contract dollars awarded but, nonetheless, in FY 2007 alone $23,107,106 was awarded for contracts in this category. I paused for a moment to attempt and come up with what I thought could be legitimate federal government purchases that would fit under this category--perhaps radios or audio recording equipment?

By drilling down further, I was able to obtain a list of every single transaction for FY 2007 in this category and discovered the biggest awards were given to companies with names like Electronic Data Systems Corporation and Reecom Electronics Inc. I thought "ok"--radios, etc. (actually EDS was contracted to perform "Record Scanning Services"). Once again, though, as I continued to scroll, I saw contracts awarded to businesses such as Washington Music Sales Center Inc. ($2.87 million awarded in FY 2007), Vintage Instruments Inc. ($14,000), Music Melody Manor Inc. ($48,585). These are only a small few--1,353 total transactions were awarded to 487 different contractors in this category in FY 2007. My dismay was deepened upon further examination of some of the transactions awarded to the businesses above. For example, 182 total transactions were awarded to Washington Music Center--$289,468 on 9/18/07 for a French Horn, $112,385 on 9/24/07 for tubas, $62,682 on 6/7/07 for a tenor saxophone. And what government agency was it that was purchasing these?? The Department of Defense, of course! Yep, that's right...out of the 182 total transactions in FY 2007 to Washington Music alone, 166 were awarded by the DoD for a total of $2.82 million.

My favorite, though, was a contract awarded on 9/24/07 by the DoD (Dept. of the Army) for $14,000 to a company called Vintage Instruments for a "J.B. Vuillaume Violin Bow." Wow, a $14,000 violin bow...from taxpayer money. While I found this quite disheartening, I couldn't help but be amused by the website for the company which touts itself as "America's largest and most eclectic shop specializing in old and antique acoustic musical instruments" and as specializing in "vintage Martin and Gibson guitars, banjos and mandolins." They also sell "historical" instruments such as lutes, hurdy gurdys, melodeons and zithers. I'm sure the Army will be needing one of these sometime soon...

Now, before you go chastizing me for making fun of the DoD for purchasing musical instruments, I realize that the Army, Navy, etc. each have a band and that's what the instruments (hopefully) are for. It's fine if one of their violin players broke their bow and needed a replacement--but a $14,000 replacement?! And yes, these transactions individually constitute only a "drop in the bucket" of what the federal government spends in total; indeed, such expenditures are surely often overlooked because of their relatively small nature. But when one sees that $23 billion TOTAL has been spent on what could legitimately be classified as purchases of a largely "frivolous" nature in only one of 103 purchase categories (and remember that this category ranks 99th out of 103), it's nearly impossible to believe that there weren't billions more dollars spent on similar things--billions more dollars that probably could have added up to nearly wipe out the $162 billion deficit in FY 2007. Why isn't more scrutiny and research devoted to this particular aspect of (wasteful) government spending? There certainly should be...