 The commission was chaired by David Packard.Beginning in 1981, Reagan began an expansion in the size and capabilities of the US armed forces, which entailed major new expenditures on weapons procurement.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.