 By the mid-1980s, the spending became a scandal when the Project on Government Oversight reported that the Pentagon had vastly overpaid for a wide variety of items, most notoriously by paying $435 for a hammer, $600 for a toilet seat, and $7,000 for an aircraft coffee maker.In fact, these numbers were inaccurate; they were an accounting convenience rather than the actual cost of the materials.In response to the scandals, Reagan appointed a commission, chaired by Packard, to study government procurement undertaken by the US Department of Defense.