PENTAGON STILL MAKES SOME PRICEY BUYS

Remember the $640 toilet seats the Pentagon purchased a few years ago? This and other spending oddities by the Defense Department, which shells out billions of dollars a year to suppliers, created quite a stir when they were brought to light. In fact, all the attention caused the department's inspector general to bear down on some of the Pentagon's purchasing operations.

While the Defense Departments says it has, indeed, cleaned up its act, there is, alas, some more not-so-good news. The inspector general has found still more cases of buying that match the high-priced toilet seat era.

Curiously, however, the inspector general's audits indicate the exorbitant prices for some items isn't the result of price gouging by contractors. Instead, it seems most of the overpriced items the Pentagon continues to purchase are due to errors, failure to drive a hard bargain, neglecting to buy parts from competitors at lower prices and buying large quantities without getting bulk discounts.

Does any of this sound familiar? It certainly does to businesses in the private sector who rely on making shrewd and careful purchasing decisions to help improve profit margins. Most anyone who does the buying for a private business or company or factory knows that the aim is to get the best quality at the lowest possible price. And the competition of free enterprise helps in this regard.

In the inspector general's own words: "We found considerable evidence that the Department of Defense had not yet learned how to be an astute buyer in the commercial market place."

So the Pentagon is spending $714 each for 108 electrical bells that previously cost $47. Or how about $5.41 for screw thread inserts that used to cost 29 cents?

What happened to the reforms that were promised at the Pentagon? U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa puts it this way: "This is deja voodoo pricing by defense contractors," adding that purchasing reforms have failed "because the defense industry is constantly successful in watering down the reforms."

Those defense contractors, by the way, make no apologies for the high prices they charge for some items they sell to the Pentagon. They say the prices are the same as those advertised to commercial airlines. Could be the airlines are looking elsewhere for suppliers who don't deal in defense contracts. It seems those suppliers have been able to get away with out-of-sight prices for so long -- at taxpayer expense -- that they think the private sector will go along too.