The Department of Defense spent $93 billion in September 2025 alone—the highest monthly spending since 2008—including a $98,329 Steinway piano for the Air Force chief of staff's home and $2 million on Alaskan king crab. Welcome to the Pentagon's annual use-it-or-lose-it budget scramble.
The spending spree wasn't just about luxury items. The Defense Department also allocated $6.9 million for lobster tail, $15.1 million for ribeye steak, $225 million on furniture—including $12,000 fruit basket stands—and $5.3 million on Apple devices. The final five days alone saw $50.1 billion in outlays, exceeding the combined defense budgets of Canada and Mexico.
This isn't new. Federal agencies face perverse incentives: spend your full congressional allocation or risk getting less next year. Unspent funds don't roll over; they disappear. So procurement officers across the government engage in a September shopping spree to protect future budgets.
John Hart, CEO of Open the Books, has tracked this pattern for years. "Last year, we highlighted the problem of wasteful use-it-or-lose-it year-end spending," he said, noting that Pentagon leadership claims to prioritize "warfighting and lethality" yet perpetuates a system that rewards inefficiency.
The question isn't whether some of these purchases serve legitimate purposes—military installations need furniture, personnel need equipment. The question is whether a $1.8 trillion federal deficit justifies Steinway pianos and premium seafood in the final days of the fiscal year, or whether procurement reform should be a bipartisan priority.
Any CFO in the private sector who burned through 15% of their annual budget in the final week would face a board inquiry. But in government contracting, it's standard operating procedure. The numbers don't lie, even if budget justifications sometimes do.
