CENSORED IN 1983: THE DOD'S COST-PLUS CONTRACTING SYSTEM TAXPAYER SWINDLE
America’s multi-billion-dollar corporations use illegal bookkeeping techniques to defraud the government out of millions of dollars and then fire employuees who report the fraud. It is a federal contracting system that encourages overruns, inefficiency, and fraud as reported by Common Cause in March, 1983. It was the number 10 censored story of 1983.
Rockwell International, one of the nation’s largest space and defense contractors, has two types of contracts with the government. The first, fixed price contracts, are negotiated in advance with a set price, and any cost overruns must be absorbed by Rockwell.
The second, cost-plus contracts, are like open-ended price tags, with the government covering all expenses no matter how high they go.
The B-1 bomber is a fixed price contract, for example, while the Space Shuttle is a cost-plus contract.
What the employees revealed was that Rockwell was shifting the billing for extra time and money spent on fixed contracts to the cost-plus contracts. “Employees were told to bill work done on the B-1 (fixed) to the Space Shuttle (cost-plus).
“The bottom line is that despite occasional press exposes of a fifteen-cent bolt that costs hundreds of dollaars when it enters the Defense Department contracting system, the fraud-susceptible cost-plus system continued” without press aoverage.
REPORTED IN 2009: OBAMA ORDERS OVERHAUL OF “BROKEN” U.S. CONTRACTING
President Barack Obama ordered an overhaul of the government contracting system designed to halt the delays, waste, and blatant fraud in the system according to an Associated Report released on March 5, 2009.
“Far too often, the spending is plagued by masive cost overruns, outright fraud, and the absence of oversight and accountability,” Obama said.
Those who cannot remember the past
are condemned to repeat it!
– George Santayana
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