Revolving door of high ranking military officers & government employees that lobby former colleagues or use positions to benefit future employers.
Latest example:https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2022/01/the-pentagons-revolvin…
A striking recent example of the Pentagon revolving door at work involved private defense contractor Boeing hiring Heidi Grant, who most recently served as the director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), the agency within the Department of Defense (DOD) tasked with reviewing and advocating for foreign military sales.
Unbeknownst to the American people, Grant was negotiating a contract to join Boeing while also publicly touting the firm’s F15-QA fighter jets as “the most capable fighters in the world” and “a transformational leap in capability.” POGO learned from a DOD spokesperson that Grant notified the agency that she was involved in contract negotiations with Boeing as early as July 29, 2021. Grant ultimately revolved just a single day after she left her government post.
A defense contractor uses a Pharma ploy (see Martin Shkreli) to boost profits.
https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2022/01/spare-parts-contractor…
A new report from the Pentagon’s watchdog has shown that, yet again, the Pentagon is paying too much for spare parts. The Department of Defense inspector general found that one supplier, TransDigm, received at least $20.8 million in excess profit on 105 spare parts over two and a half years. In one instance, auditors found that TransDigm’s profit level was as high as 3,850.6%.
Before this new report, TransDigm had become notorious for its practice of acquiring companies that have sole-source contracts with the government and then dramatically hiking up the price for spare parts.
https://www.pogo.org/testimony/2022/01/testimony-watchdog-re…
TransDigm isn’t the only company collecting excess profits at the expense of taxpayers and other defense programs. Reports from the DOD IG show the department paid excessive amounts for spare parts from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon — its top three contractors.15 Many in the defense industry hope to fend off meaningful statutory changes by claiming that TransDigm is unusual or an anomaly. Don’t be fooled. Years of DOD IG reports show that this form of overpricing is the rule, not the exception.
Like healthcare the US has the best defense money can buy.