Jackie Speier: “Everyone has heard about ``The Price is Right,'' but on C-SPAN tonight, we are going to play ``The Price is Wrong.''…”

“Everyone has heard about ``The Price is Right,'' but on C-SPAN tonight, we are going to play ``The Price is Wrong.'' Before doing so, I want to put this in perspective. A number of years ago, we were all aghast as taxpayers--even here as Members of Congress--when we found out that in the Department of Defense we were spending $436 on a hammer, that we spent $7,600 on a coffee urn, and that--oh, yes--we spent $640 on a toilet seat. Talk about flushing money down a toilet--we were doing it--but that fleecing that we thought had ended has actually continued. Since 2010, the inspector general of the Department of Defense has found that we are spending more than $430 million over what we should be paying for spare parts--thousands of spare parts. So we are paying much more than the fair or reasonable price for these parts. What the military should do when it needs parts is go to what is called the Defense Logistics Agency, DLA--it is sort of like the defense hardware store--but sometimes they think it is cheaper and, maybe, faster if they go to a defense contractor and ask for those parts. These audits also showed that the certain parts we have in such volume will last us 100 years. That is like having spare parts like, let's say, horseshoes dating back to World War I, and they are sitting around the defense hardware store today--more than 100 years' worth of certain spare parts. You might think maybe this is a little complicated, but it is really not complicated.…”