re: New “scandal” just dropped: military budget included lobster for deployed troops, Ds upset

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And when that 99k was needed next year for something important and it wasn't there?

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Duh, we do what everyone else does, we just take the 99k out of the teachers pensions.

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And are you now openly defending use it or lose it policy?

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Not at all. But I'd bet it's a congressional approval thing and we can't even pass the basic budget, much less change the entire way government budgets have worked forever.

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But I'd bet it's a congressional approval thing

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It is. But nothing in that structure requires the money to be spent.

Anyone who’s spent more than a few days in the military is familiar with the September spending spree. The whole point is to burn through leftover funds so the unit can claim it actually needs the same budget next year, which usually means buying things nobody actually needed.

In other words, it's a self-perpetuating cycle of wasting tax dollars.

Do you think that’s a sound fiscal policy? And if not, why are you defending it?

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It actually does. That how the appropriations process works.

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No, it doesn’t. Appropriations authorize money to be obligated within a time window. They don’t require that every dollar actually be spent. If funds aren’t obligated before the window closes, they expire. The September spending spree happens because units don’t want to signal they were overfunded and risk smaller budgets next year, not because the law forces them to burn every dollar.

So if you believe the system literally requires money to be spent, feel free to explain where that requirement exists in the appropriations process.

And more importantly, do you actually think the “use it or lose it” incentive structure is good fiscal policy? Because the real-world result is predictable every year: agencies scrambling to spend leftover funds on things they didn’t actually need just to justify next year’s budget.

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Remind me again where your outrage was over the military equipment President Brandon donated to the Taliban?

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That’s a strange standard. I don’t have to catalogue every other example of government waste before criticizing one specific case. If something is irresponsible spending, it’s irresponsible spending whether or not you're aware of every time I've commented on every other instance you can think of.

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100%
i deal with it every year

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Chalk up use or lose to another thing MAGA supports now.

I can tell you from experience that foward deployed troops on carriers that are at sea more than 60 days without a port call and entitled to 2 beers. On the Nimitz we were at sea for like 80 consecutive day about 65 days in we had what was called a steel beach picnic and we grilled out hamburgers, hotdogs and steaks on the flight deck and each member was allowed 2 beers as long as they were off duty and had no scheduled duty within the next 12 hours. I can’t even imagine what it costs to fly in pallets of beer and steaks for Bahrain so we all could have a few.

Little Chucky has no idea how much it costs for his little stuff like this for troops. Giving troops in harms way surf and turf once a month is a small price to pay for morale. Speaking from experience it goes a long way to keeping spirits up.

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Anyone who’s spent more than a few days in the military is familiar with the September spending spree. The whole point is to burn through leftover funds so the unit can claim it actually needs the s

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This is most private sector companies as well.

Marketing and BD dudes are the absolute worst about this shite.

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The difference is private companies are spending their own money. If a company wants to blow cash on nonsense at the end of the year, that’s their shareholders’ problem. Government agencies are spending taxpayer money.

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Did you really think I didn’t know the difference between government funds and private funds lol?

Also, I was simply comparing the September rush to point out wasteful spending and people’s lack of GAF about any money that is not theirs personally.

It makes me sick both ways, private and public because people, the majority, seem to be selfish pricks.

The food purchases for the soldiers are not wasteful. Treat them well. We don’t do enough for the enlisted soldiers honestly.

The piano just makes me laugh. I said earlier that if it’s some sort of antique that they got at a great value I’m not opposed to items that appreciate. If the piano is in someone’s house it needs to be taken out asap and get returned to a public location.

So overall, I don’t support wasteful spending at all. That said, wasteful for you might not be wasteful to me.

Moral is important, you’ll never hear me bitch about the soldiers getting bennies, they deserve it.

And we haven’t had a balanced budget in God knows how long, what would make you think today, in 2026 that it would be tight? Lol

We have been getting robbed blind, these little items are the least of our worries.

You need to be bitching at Minnesota and states like that, not the military.

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Do you think the “use it or lose it” spending dynamic is antithetical to this administration’s stated position on cutting wasteful spending?

Yes, they need to tighten up, you can’t have use it or lose it and also say you want to cut waste.

This is also a slippery slope because some years you may save on expenditures due to thousands of reasons that are outliers and losing the amount is actually not the proper play, depending on the situation.

Example would be if 3 companies alternate paying for the national convention each year and one of these companies doesn’t accrue the cost on years the others pay, you are actually hurting the marketing and bd people by pulling the prior budgeted amount


And if so, doesn’t that send a message that’s at odds with the fiscal discipline they publicly claim to support?

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This is correct sir.

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Thank you. I think that’s a reasonable position to hold. What I do resent is the framing some people in this thread have used, not necessarily you, that criticizing this kind of spending somehow means being “against the troops,” which is basically what the OP is suggesting. I spent half my adult life as one of those troops I supposedly hate, and most of them, to paraphrase Patton, were shoveling shite in Louisiana.

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I don’t think criticizing their double standards is a dig at the troops. I just want them always to be fed well haha.