The 600 dollar hammer applied in 2011?

This first part is not my work - It has been floating around the internet and in blogs, in emails and generally made the rounds so to speak - It's been around since the dark days of usenet

There was a man who computed his taxes for 1997 and found that he owed $3407. He packaged up his payment and included this letter:

Dear IRS:

Enclosed is my 1997 Tax Return & payment. Please take note of the attached article from the USA Today newspaper. In the article, you will see that the Pentagon is paying $171.50 for hammers and NASA has paid $600.00 for a toilet seat.

Please find enclosed four toilet seats (value $2400) and six hammers(value $1029). This brings my total payment to $3429.00. Please note the overpayment of $22.00 and apply it to the 'Presidential Election Fund', as noted on my return. Might I suggest you send the above mentioned fund a '1.5 inch screw'. (See attached article - HUD paid $22.00 for a 1.5 inch Phillips Head Screw.)

It has been a pleasure to pay my tax bill this year, and I look forward to paying it again next year. I just saw an article about the Pentagon and 'screwdrivers'.

Sincerely,

(Name withheld to protect the innocent)

Now.. Here's my opinion... They did a lot of internal housecleaning right then and there... and for a couple of years later- that left us with only a 550+ billion dollar deficit at the end of the September 2008 accounting period.... With the democrats running wild with war spending (remember it was a Dem controlled Congress at the end of his term)....How much housecleaning you reckon they gotta do with all them defense contractors they getting stuff from nowadays?