August 20, 2007 9:05AM # Making $600 Toilet Seats Seem Like a Bargain By [Daniel J. Mitchell](https://www.cato.org/people/daniel-mitchell) --- SHARE Like other parts of government, the Pentagon is famous for wasting money, but a recent Bloomberg [report ](http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=ardg6DwCCMFI&refer=home)makes $600 toilet seats seem like a good deal from the discount bin at Wal-Mart: > A small South Carolina parts supplier collected about $20.5 million over six years from the Pentagon for fraudulent shipping costs, including $998,798 for sending two 19-cent washers to an Army base in Texas, U.S. officials said. The company also billed and was paid $455,009 to ship three machine screws costing $1.31 each to Marines in Habbaniyah, Iraq, and $293,451 to ship an 89-cent split washer to Patrick Air Force Base in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Pentagon records show. …The scheme unraveled in September after a purchasing agent noticed a bill for shipping two more 19-cent washers: $969,000. That order was rejected and a review turned up the $998,798 payment earlier that month for shipping two 19-cent washers to > Fort Bliss, Texas, Stroot said. ##### Related Tags [General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).