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Remember last year when the Washington Post published a story suggesting that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth may have engaged in a war crime—only for the story to be debunked by one of the Post’s own columnists just a week later? Now the New York Times is running with a negative story about Mr. Hegseth that is undermined by its previous reporting. Niko Gallogly includes an
item in the Times’s Dealbook newsletter under the headline, “Tracking the Pentagon’s profligate lobster budget.” Mr. Gallogly writes: On Monday, as the world was still grappling with news that the United States had attacked Iran, the government watchdog Open the Books released a report on military spending in September that contained some eye-popping line items. The Pentagon blew through a total of $93.4 billion that month by spending, for example, $6.9 million on lobster tail; $15.1 million on rib-eye steak; and $225.6 million on furniture… For almost a decade, Open the Books has published similar reports, intending to highlight the deluge of “use it or lose it” spending that typically occurs at the end of the fiscal year, as government agencies work to avoid forfeiting any unused budget. Federal spending is way too high and end-of-the-fiscal-year spending binges are indeed a problem across the Washington bureaucracy. Mr. Gallogy includes an interview with John Hart of Open the Books:
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