Pentagon Pays $52,000 For Trash Cans!

What's the most amount that any of you watching this program listening with spend for a garbage can? Well, for the Pentagon, that number is apparently $50,000, because that's what they paid to a military defense contractor, according to a new report from responsible state craft. Private contractors have been jacking up the prices of simple items. And the Pentagon agreed to screw over the taxpayers and shell out

an extra $1.3 million for those unnecessary markups, including trash bins. Again, this comes from responsible states graph until 2010, Boeing charged an average of $300 for a trash container used in the E3 century in a surveillance and radar plane based on the 707 civilian airliner. When the 707 fell out of use in the United States, the trash can was no longer a commercial item. Meeting that

Boeing was not obligated to keep its price at previous levels according to weapons industry source in 2020. The Pentagon paid Boeing over $200,000 for four of the trash cans translating roughly $51,606 per unit. In a 2021 contract, the company charged $36,640 each for 11 trash containers, resulting in a total cost of more than $400,000. The apparent overcharged cost taxpayers and extra $600,000 between the two garbage

can contracts. But that's not all. There are other examples, of course, of the gregis and wasteful spending. In another case, Lockheed Martin hyped the price of an electrical conduit for a P3 plane as much as 14 fold costs in the Pentagon and additional 133,000. Between 2008 and 2015, Jamaica Barings, a company that distributes parts manufactured by other firms sold the Department of Defense 13 radio filters

that had once cost $350,000 each for nearly $49,000 per unit in 2022. The apparent markup cost taxpayers more than $600,000 an extra fees. 60 minutes recently did an investigation highlighting the ramp in price gouging in the arms industry, including one case in which Boeing overcharged taxpayers by more than half a billion dollars for missiles used in the Patriot Missile Defense System. The investigation also revealed that

Raytheon technologies had raised the price of stinger missiles from $25,000 each to more than $400,000 per unit. Even accounting for inflation and some improvements, that's a seven-fold increase, according to Shia Sada from Repenagon Acquisitions official told 60 minutes. And these companies, by the way, of course, are making out like bandits about half of the Biden administration's $800,000 billion dollar Pentagon budget request goes to contractors in

2022, roughly 30% military spending, went to the big five weapons makers, which include Raytheon Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman. And again, this comes from Conor Eckles, responsible state craft. Jack, I remember it was like 30 or 40 years ago where there was something like hammers were costing the Air Force in a several thousand dollars and then sparked all kind of outrage. But what's

just gotten exponentially more egregious? Yeah, look, just because they were a suits doesn't mean they're not crooks. So these guys, defense contractors, overcharging us by half a billion here, half a billion there, they're complete and utter crooks. And their co-conspirators are almost all of the politicians in Congress. There are some progressives that vote no on these budgets. In fact, let's be honest, in the last Pentagon

budget, there was only one person that voted no, and it was Rokana. Yes, he's a progressive and even everyone else still voted for it. And so, no, this is absolutely outrageous. There's no accountability. And the reason there's no accountability is because they literally bribe, I'm sorry, campaign contributions, make sure media are you happy that we all pretend that they're not bribes, they're bribes, they bribe them

so that they give millions of dollars to these greasy crooked politicians, almost all of them. They take that and then they go, oh my God, it is so important that we have defense. No, they should not pass audits, they should just rob us goddamn blind and give me a part of the proceeds. Oh, oops, did I say that I like well, you didn't. And the media

is never going to correct you on it, but we're now part of the media. So we're correcting your ass. Let me give you more graphics here. Graphics seven. In December, the Pentagon flunked, it's a fifth consecutive audit, unable to account for more than 60% of its three and a half trillion dollars in total assets. So they can't find over two trillion dollars. They can't find it.

Totally unaccounted for them. Not two million, not two billion, to trillion. They're like, oh, Gali, gee, why did you want the two trillion? Yeah, God, David, I didn't want the two trillion. I wanted to go to paid family leave, free college. I wanted to go to higher minimum wage. I wanted to go to things that actually help Americans. Child tax credit, it was incredibly popular. We

could have spent that money on all of us. We could have spent it on Democrats, we could have spent it on Republicans. We spent it on independence, spend it on actual Americans. Instead, a bunch of crooks, stole it, stole it. And then the politicians helped them steal it. And then mainstream media comes in and does the cover up. Oh, I don't see a crime here. What,

what, two trillion dollars is missing? No, that's not a problem at all. Let's talk about trans athletes in high school sports, all seven of them. Because that's the major issue. Okay, I'm going to give you more. Then you get crooks like Joe Manchin, a total and utter criminal. He's worried though, he is worried about wasting government to be fair, okay? So let's go to graphic 10.

I cannot accept our economy or basically our society moving towards an entitlement mentality. Oh, I'm sorry, he didn't say that about the defense department or the missing trillions of dollars from the Pentagon. He said that about poor people when they were getting the child tax credit and he's like, they shouldn't get it. You're just the average American. A bunch of people think they're entitled, didn't even

bribe me. They could contribute a single dollar to my yacht. He literally lives on a yacht. And all of the defense contractors bribe them 24, seven. And he doesn't mind trillions of dollars being flushed down the toilet or put into a 50 or $500,000 trash can. But God forbid that any actual American gets money. Well, then he's super mad about the entitlement complex. Last one from

me, graphic 11, gives you a sense of scale of our budget. Look at the military, nearly half of the entire budget. If you once you put in veteran benefits, it's more than half. What do we have? Defense for what the hell we talking about? It's not defense. It's to go invade random countries so they can make even more money. Bunch of criminals. If you stole $2

trillion, what do you think would happen to you? Now watch, you take Taperol, jump in and blame me and go, you can't say they stole it, they just can't find it. You guys are a joke. Everyone in power is a joke. And they steal from us day in and day out. That's the reality. At least there's an effort by at least Bernie Sanders, of course, to

try to make the Pentagon pay for this sort of malfeasance. He's actually gotten some support for his bill from Senator Chuck Grassley from Iowa. So what they've done is they've rolled out a bill that essentially would force the Pentagon not only to undergo an audit, which they do now, but actually to pass the audit. And if this audit, if it's called the audit, the Pentagon Act

of 2023, it would force every component of the defense department that fails to audit and fiscal year 2024 to return 1% of its budget to the Treasury Department. Here's what Bernie Sanders said of the bill, the Pentagon and the military industrial complex have been plagued by a massive amount of waste fraud and financial dismanagement for decades. That is absolutely unacceptable. We're serious about spending taxpayer dollars

wisely and effectively we've got to and the absurdity of the Pentagon being the only agency in the federal government that has never passed an independent audit. And to put a fine point, Jack, and what you were saying about Joe Manchin that he's not really concerned about Pentagon wasteful spending, but damn, is he really concerned about social security and other social safety net programs that he says

he would rather take away here as Manchin talking about that just last November. Looking ahead, what are the similar opportunities for bipartisan action? Or basically our society moving towards an entitlement mentality? Of course, we have an entitlement mentality with our defense contractors. That's why they are gouging us and, oh, by the way, part of the problem is they don't have competition. A lot of these contracts

are no bid. So they're able to get away with jacking up the prices because nobody else is bidding on this stuff and to put another finer point on this. If you look at the total amount of let's talk about how the US military spends compared to the top 10 other industrialized nations, we spend the United States spends more. More on defense than the next 10 industrialized

nations combined. And of course, if you're a defense contractor, you are making out like a bandit. Your stock prices are up. You're able to give stock buybacks. You're able to give bonuses. You've got executives who are making 20 to 25 million dollars a year. And of course, because they are able to charge what they want to charge. And there's essentially nothing that the Pentagon, or at

least the Department of Defense has been doing right now, to put an end of this, and to actually ask these contractors to cost the Pentagon a fair market value. Well, hopefully, Bernie Sanders can get some traction behind his effort. That would at least be a start. So by the way, great job by Bernie. He's one of the very few people who's actually trying to do anything

in Congress. It's a perfectly good bill. It's literally the least we can ask for. If you can't tell us where the money is, and we have no confidence where the money is going and whether you guys are just literally stealing it and putting it in your pockets, then at least give us back 1% of the budget. It has no chance of passing. Every Republican will vote

against it and then crooks like Joe Manchin who claim to care about the deficit will all of a sudden, they're like 1% of the defense budget just because they're stealing it. No, no way, no, how will I get my prives? My yacht needs a new yacht within a yacht. I can't do that. What a crook, Joe Manchin is. And what does mainstream media call Joe Manchin?

Modern media. We've asked if you pulled Bernie's bill, the right wing doesn't want the Pentagon, right wing voters doesn't want the Pentagon stealing from us either and they don't want endless wars either. It would pull it about 90% of Americans. God damn it, give us at least 1% back if you can't pass an audit. Yet in Congress, it has a 0% chance because this country is

run almost exclusively by crooks. And those crooks are demanding it would be cracked down on the waste fraud and abuse and Medicare. And sure, there are various government programs. Any government program is not going to be perfect. There's no such thing as perfection. But it's just, it's so amazing to me, Jack, that you have Republicans who are so hyped up and so angry about the waste

and the fraud and the abuse that exists in social security programs and Medicare. We've got to do something about it. And yet when you then ask them about, okay, well, let's talk about something that actually has even more waste fraud and abuse. And a higher dollar figure, the military, I don't know, no, no, we're not going to do that. We just let the Pentagon, we'll give

the Pentagon the money and they do what they want. Well, that's a problem. And that just sort of underscores why I think so many people, it's not that we are necessarily anti-military or anti-Penagon. It's like we don't like the fact that the Pentagon is essentially an entitlement program for people who make bombs and missiles. And yes, maybe some bombs and missiles are necessary to US national

security, but it is not necessary for the taxpayers to be put on the hook for paying $50,000 for a freaking garbage can in a plane that used to cost $300. Thanks for watching the Young Turks. Really appreciated. Another way to show support is through YouTube memberships. You'll get to interact with us more. There's live chat emojis, badges. You got emojis of me, Anna, John, JR. So