In a July 21, 2017, memo, the secretary of defense, James Mattis, made promising comments about his ambitions to end wasteful spending at the Pentagon. He wrote that he expected “leaders at all levels in the department to exercise the utmost degree of stewardship over every penny” spent and that “only by instilling budget discipline, by establishing a culture of cost awareness, and by holding ourselves accountable, can we earn the trust and confidence of the Congress and the American people that we are the best possible stewards of taxpayer dollars.”

I’ve spent more than three decades reviewing egregious spending at the Defense Department. The sentiments expressed in the memo were encouraging, so much so that I sent Secretary Mattis a letter of support. Since then, however, it seems the department has done very little to change its ways.

Over the past few months alone, the Defense Department has had to explain why it’s been paying $14,000 for individual 3-D printed toilet seat lids and purchasing cups for $1,280 each. These are just the latest examples on a long list of unacceptable purchases made by the department, including $436 for hammers in the 1980s, and $117 soap dish covers and $999 pliers in the 1990s.

These wasteful expenditures reflect major underlying financial problems at the department, whose 2019 budget is more than $700 billion . If it had its financial house in order, overpriced parts and contracts might have been detected before ever being approved. Effective internal controls to catch and deter fraud, waste, abuse and theft serve as a firewall that would help prevent misuses of taxpayer dollars.