Media pounced on ‘Lobstergate’ — but totally missed the real scandal

This month my organization, Open the Books, released one of our now-routine reports on the federal government’s imbecilic “use-it-or-lose-it” spending rules that compel agencies to shovel money out the door at the end of every fiscal year.

This installment focused on the Pentagon’s record-setting $93.4 billion in spending this past September, including a $50 billion surge in the last five days of the fiscal year.

It’s a systemic problem that plagues every department in the federal government — so much so that it’s known in Washington as “Christmas in September.”

An entire industry of consultants has sprung up to help companies take advantage of federal agencies’ year-end panic buying.

But prominent Democrats and late-night hosts ignored all that as they used our findings to lambaste Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for what they mocked as his profligate lobster spending.

We always welcome converts to fiscal sanity — but none of Hegseth’s critics objected when we raised these very same concerns about Joe Biden’s Pentagon.

More important, the $24.5 million spent by the Defense Department on surf and turf in September is just a tiny fraction of the use-it-or-lose-it phenomenon.

The military spent nearly 10 times that amount on furniture ($225.6 million) that month, and 2,000 times that on a $50 billion five-day blowout just before September 30.

And while the Pentagon has spent about twice as much in the last month of the fiscal year as in any other month since at least 2008, proportionally it’s not even the worst offender.

Department of Transportation spending, for example, swelled to $29.8 billion last September, up from an average of $9.45 billion per month.

Homeland Security spent $16.2 billion, up from a monthly average of $5.6 billion, and Veterans Affairs spent $10.9 billion, up from an average of $6.4 billion monthly.

The General Services Administration managed to buy $849.3 million worth of stuff during just the last two days of September 2025 —  and its $4.4 million spree that month included $86,287 of expensive YETI backpacks that retail for $150 to $300, $308.8 million on new vehicles, and $216,621 on wristwatches and stopwatches.

Even golf-cart and ATV spending has a September surge across the government: The feds spent $8.4 million on them last fiscal year, with $3.5 million of that — 41% — in the final month.

Not surprisingly, these rushed decisions are often unwise ones.

The American Economic Review found that hurried year-end purchases were more than five times as likely to receive a “low quality” score from government chief information officers, based on their cost and usefulness.

President Donald Trump’s Cabinet could have gotten ahead of this problem.

Last year, Trump’s DOGE effort put all agencies on notice to end wasteful habits, and in September we publicly urged Hegseth to avoid the annual budget trap.

While he has rightly called for end to wasteful contracting, the secretary has not sounded the alarm about the irrational “use-it-or-lose-it” rules that Congress has instituted.   

The next best time to reform this dysfunctional process is now.

Last week, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) introduced legislation to finally fix the problem — not just at the Pentagon, but across the federal government.

Ernst’s End-of-Year Fiscal Responsibility Act would tie spending levels in the last two months of the fiscal year to the average of the ten preceding months.

By prohibiting year-end outlays exceeding that average, her bill would push agencies into spending thoughtfully and investing in core responsibilities year-round, rather than engaging in ritualistic binges in September.

Hegseth’s critics should understand the serious and costly dysfunctions underlying “Lobstergate” — and recognize how widespread they are.

And reformers should call their bluff.

If Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is truly troubled by Hegseth’s lobster orders for the troops, he should work with Ernst on a durable bipartisan solution.

Taxpayers deserve a transparent and robust debate about how any presidential administration is spending their money, especially in matters of war.

And no one in Washington should be comfortable with an obviously dysfunctional status quo.

If Trump wants to maintain public support for an Iran mission that will require a $50 billion supplemental, he and congressional Republicans would be wise to offer a generous portion of reform.

The taxpayers, and our adversaries, are watching.

John Hart is the CEO of Open the Books.