300 of thousands for cups: ridiculous expenses were revealed in the US Army

The Air Force has declared repeated purchases of breakable coffee cups that cost $1280 each to be “simply irresponsible,” vowing to repair broken cups instead of continually buying new ones.

Photo: US Air Force / Tech. Sgt. James Hodgman / Fox News

Buying and replacing special mugs that can re-heat liquids on board tanker air tankers in flight cost the US Air Force $ 326,785 starting at 2016, the department secretary Heather Wilson said in a letter. USA Today.

The letter, dated last Wednesday and sent to Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, appeared after Grassley requested “another report on the wasteful expenditures of the Department of Defense” in an earlier written message.

In a correspondence with 2 in October, Grassley asked Wilson about the Fox News report, which said that the squadron from the California-based Travis Air Force base had spent 56 thousand dollars on metal circles in the last three years, which the military had continued to break and break.

Sergeant James Hodgeman, a squadron spokesman, explained this issue to Fox News.

“Unfortunately, when a mug is dropped, the handle easily breaks off, costing thousands of dollars to replace cups because replacement parts are not available,” he said.

The same special mug. Photo: US Air Force / Tech. Sgt. James Hodgman / Fox News

In her response, Wilson explained that part production cuts coupled with rising material prices have nearly doubled the cost of a cup from $693 in 2016 to $1280 in 2018. During the last two years, the Air Force bought a total of 391 cups, it said, for a total of $326 — an average of $785 per cup.

“You are right to be concerned about the high cost of replacement parts, and I appreciate your support in addressing this issue,” Wilson said, detailing a new effort to replace cup parts using 3D printing instead of purchasing parts. This can be done for as little as 50 cents per cup, without the need to buy a new one for over a thousand dollars.

“It is simply irresponsible to spend thousands of dollars on manufactured parts when we have the technology to produce them ourselves,” Wilson said in the letter.

In a statement released on Friday, Grassley said he was not completely satisfied with the response from the Air Force and promised to “continue the discussion of this issue.”

“While I appreciate that the Air Force is working to find innovative alternatives that will save taxpayers money, it remains unclear why it cannot find a cheaper alternative to the $1280 cup,” Grassley said.

"Government officials should be responsible for the efficient use of taxpayers' money, but too often this is not the case."

Earlier this year, Grassley demanded a response from air force officials about whether buying lids for cargo aircraft toilet bowls worth 10 thousand dollars each made sense, and since then this part of the service has been created using three-dimensional printing.

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