SAVE Award 2011 Department of Defense

Every end of the fiscal year, federal agencies rush to spend any leftover money to ensure they at least have the same budget the next year. Basically, there is a strong incentive to spend as much money as possible, resulting in terribly wasteful spending. I propose several measures be implemented to incentivize saving budget money: 1. Make sure that any established ceiling is not lowered simply due to a lack of spending.... more »

The US is willing to spend our hard earned tax dollars helping other countries that don't even want to help themselves. It's time to stop paying foreign aid and save that money until we can turn our debt around. Once we get our debt under control we can revisit the idea of wasting our money on other countries.

It costs taxpayers millions of dollars and directly contributes to the vast national debt and corruption of all political figures to allow them to vote for their own pay raises and to receive retirement after serving only two to four years in any office under the privilage as being a representative of the people along with having exclusive health care not afforded to any other citizen. Full retirement benefits should... more »

There is very little need for GSA exclusive contracts with airline companies that charge the government extraordinary amount for the same flight. Government workers can book their own flights online for hundreds, even thousands less. For example, flights from DAY to DCA are about $1300 while it can be found on Kayak or Expedia for less than $300. Most travel are not cancelled, cancellation fees should be deductible... more »

I think everyone that is receiving welfare, should have to go through the same drug screening as the military. If they fail they would lose their benefits. I also think they should re-evaluate everyone on welfare.

Congressional members should be under the same pay freeze federal government employees are. In fact, they should change the legislation that allows their pay to increase automatically. The new legislation should link their pay changes to federal government employees pay changes.

Currently in the DoD we treat our high ranking officers like kings. We provide them mansions to live in, grounds keepers, cooks, drivers, secretaries and aids. They get treated as well as a CEO of a fortune 500 company at tax payers expense. All of this goes on while the SES that works in the office next to them drives their own car, pays for their own gas, pays for their own house, transportation etc. Just because... more »

For a number of years, retired military officers could only go to work for Civil Service if they took a cut in their “retirement pay” (which is a misnomer). The original concept for enacting that particular law was to cease the “double dipping” of certain life-long government employees. Then the CONgress (in their infinite wisdom and against the overwhelming wishes of the American people) voted to allow retired officers... more »

The US Governemnt pays top dollar on everything that they purchase. WHY!? We buy most things in bulk and you would think that we would get it for a cheaper price but we don't. Stop the useless overspending. I am an aircraft mechanic for the DoD and US Air Force Reserves. when we pay $250,000.00 for a winch it's getting a little ridiculous or $70,000.00 for a windshield, or even $5.00 bot a 10 cent bolt. Needless to say... more »

Why does the military use civilian contractors to guard their facilities, including gate/post access? When I was on active duty, we guarded out own facilities, and did a better job of it than contractors. What are active duty service members doing of they are not guarding the gates (MP’s) and facilities - training 24/7? I think the only service who still uses its active duty forces to guard their facilities... more »

The Air Force is paying civilians to conduct bi-annual fitness testing of military members. This shows a complete lack of confidence in the integrity of Airman and is a serious waste of resources. Immediately stand down the fitness assessment cells and return fitness testing responsibility to military members. We can control nuclear weapons but can't be trusted to count push-ups? Does anyone else see a problem with this?... more »

I think that it would be beneficial to bring Warrant Officers to the Air Force and reduce the number of Officers. A Warrant Officer brings hands on technical knowledge that other services use to do their flying, and tech jobs. Having steady WO's would bring less confusion on changes in work areas making production stay efficent and streamlined. As far as cost savings its clearly there, just pull up a military pay chart,... more »

Roofing Projects for new government buildings and for Repairing existing government buildings is expensive, but it would Save a lot of money over time if we added Solar Panels at the same time as roof work is being contracted. The installation costs would be reduced greatly and the electrical savings would more than make up for the smaller construction cost over time and would lower our dependence on energy. It would... more »

All branches of the military have different uniforms that are worn on a day to day basis for example ABU and ACU. My idea for saving money would be to adopt one uniform for all branches of the military. The only distinction would be the name tape on the uniform, i..e blue for Air Force, black for Army. I beleive this would help cut spending for the military by cutting coastly contracts with different vendors for different... more »

Work Monday-Thursday 10 hr days. Friday-Sunday the DoD CONUS bases close down, except for security/command post etc... During Friday-Sunday the bases should shut everything off as possible. Limited power used...EQUALS SAVINGS.