In-kind base payments fund projects Congress would never have approved

Evidence

What’s more, if in-kind contributions are to be used, the law also requires the secretary of defense to certify that these contributions replace future funding requests—in other words, that if it were not for the availability of in-kind payments, the military would have asked for future MilCon money for the project. But after reviewing twelve MilCon projects for which in-kind payments were used, the Senate Committee found that none had been considered for future funding requests. In other words, the military was specifically directing in-kind payments toward projects “unlikely to be included” on a list of funding priorities for Congress. As a result, the committee found, in-kind funding has gone to “questionable projects,” including a 6 million furniture warehouse and 200,000 in sunroom additions for senior officers’ homes. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 776

Categorization

• SHARE: For a defense-budget wonk: $200,000 in in-kind sunroom additions for senior officers’ homes is precisely the kind of absurd detail they’d savor.