"The federal government spends a disproportionate amount of its budget for outside contractors in the final month of the fiscal year, as agencies rush to blow through cash before it’s too late. Among the more noteworthy expenditures in 2018, according to the watchdog group Open the Books, was $4.6 million for lobster tail and crab.
Such use-it-or-lose-it spending stems from the fact that each federal agency is given a certain amount of money it can spend on outside contractors for the fiscal year. If the agency comes in under budget, Congress might decide to appropriate less money the following year."
That's exactly how it works. I worked for the federal government for thirty years (thirty years in the hole!). I remember one time when working in West Germany for the Department of the Army, I learned that the recreation department on the base I worked at spent $100K on softballs in September of whatever year it was (1986?). I was a position classification specialist which included researching information about jobs, organizations, etc., that's how I came by that information. They explained to me the "use it or lose it" budgeting approach and how every organization made sure they burned through their budget at the end of the fiscal year, if they hadn't already. It was certainly nothing new then, over 30 years ago, so it's been going on for many decades.
Maybe we could just abolish September? Nah, they'd just do the same thing in August. It would be a shame to bring common sense to the federal budget process, that would throw everything out of whack.
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