Will New Legislation Fix Old Problem of Overcharging DoD?

By Walter Pincus

Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist Walter Pincus is a contributing senior national security columnist for The Cipher Brief. He spent forty years at The Washington Post, writing on topics that ranged from nuclear weapons to politics. He is the author of Blown to Hell: America's Deadly Betrayal of the Marshall Islanders. Pincus won an Emmy in 1981 and was the recipient of the Arthur Ross Award from the American Academy for Diplomacy in 2010.  He was also a team member for a Pulitzer Prize in 2002 and the George Polk Award in 1978.  

OPINION — Those of us old enough to remember the 1980s scandal of the Defense Department paying $640 for a toilet seat for the C-5 Air Force transport plane will see a more modern version in the activities of TransDigm Group, Inc., as disclosed at a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing last Wednesday.

This time, as hearing Chairman Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) described it, TransDigm sold a spare part for the F-5 fighter that the Defense Department inspector general said cost $173 to make for a price of $6,986, giving them an excess price of 3,930 percent.

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