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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsUnbelievable. Infuriating.
Pentagons Sloppy Bookkeeping Means $6.5 Trillion Cant Pass an Audit
The Defense Department over the years has been notorious for its lax accounting practices. The Pentagon has never completed an audit of how they actually spend the trillions of dollars on wars, equipment, personnel, housing, healthcare and procurements.
An increasingly impatient Congress has demanded that the Army achieve audit readiness for the first time by Sept. 30, 2017, so that lawmakers can get a better handle on military spending. But Pentagon watchdogs think that may be mission impossible, and for good reason.
A Department of Defense inspector generals report released last week offered a jaw-dropping insight into just how bad the militarys auditing system is.
The Defense Finance and Accounting Service, the behemoth Indianapolis-based agency that provides finance and accounting services for the Pentagons civilian and military members, could not provide adequate documentation for $6.5 trillion worth of year-end adjustments to Army general fund transactions and data.
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http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2016/07/31/Pentagon-s-Sloppy-Bookkeeping-Means-65-Trillion-Can-t-Pass-Audit
Dustlawyer
(10,497 posts)wastes each year without cutting military effectiveness.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)Europeans have nice things- we flush too much of our money down the toilet.
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)There have been many similar reports announced for what seems like decades.
Complete and accurate accountings are just as often, if not somewhat more called for, but those accountings are never realized.
NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)They're not going to have a line item that says "money for mustard gas that we used on civilians"
or "bribes for assassinations".
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)The defense budget is a very big carpet under which many things can be swept.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,032 posts)mopinko
(70,180 posts)richard secord.
stuff comes in the front door, gets stamped as surplus, gets sold out the back door to slimy tin pot dictators and guerrilla movements that we train, and the money goes into some mole's pocket.
randome
(34,845 posts)[hr][font color="blue"][center]Meredith McIver approves of this post.[/center][/font][hr]
cali
(114,904 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)Or maybe that word doesn't mean what I think it means.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Meredith McIver approves of this post.[/center][/font][hr]
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,032 posts)frazzled
(18,402 posts)I hope we take reporting from the right-leaning Fiscal Times with a grain of salt.
The start-up, The Fiscal Times, covers economic issues, with a particular focus on the federal budget, the growing deficit and efforts to rein in health care and Social Security spending. Its financing was provided by Peter G. Peterson, the billionaire investment banker who advocates deficit reduction and restrictions on entitlement programs.
On Dec. 31, The Post published the first news article produced by The Fiscal Times, a report on the support in Washington for a proposed deficit-reduction commission. The primary expert quoted in the article is from the Concord Coalition, whose mission is also balanced budgets and limits on safety-net spending.
But the article did not mention Mr. Peterson, his backing of The Fiscal Times, that he was a co-founder of the Concord Coalition or that his foundation was a major underwriter of the coalition.
A group of mostly liberal policy analysts say the problem is more basic than a lack of transparency that The Fiscal Times has a built-in bias, so The Post should not publish its work.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/business/media/06post.html?_r=0
MADem
(135,425 posts)from left to right shaking their fist at that topic. It's as sure as springtime--a problem we've had for many, many years, now. It crosses not just administrations, but GENERATIONS.
I'd love to see us get a handle on it. I've been a fan of trying to do just that for a long time, now.
ToxMarz
(2,169 posts)of it ended up in the mansions of the defense contractors
MADem
(135,425 posts)I don't mean to splash cold water on this idea, because I think it is LONG overdue, but this sort of effort has been tried before. I can remember at least three HUGE pushes to get some accountability in DC, one of the more famous ones after that DOD boondoggle that was memorialized in the HBO film "Pentagon Wars" (anyone who hasn't seen it should take the time and watch--it is an older movie but it is right on the money).
This is the Quadrennial Dance of the Congresscritters, IMO. Sound and fury....
The POTUS who can get a handle on Five-Sided Funny Farm Fraud, Waste and Abuse (FWA) should be given a Nobel Prize--it will be that grand an achievement. Part of the problem is that there's a whole black ops budget included in that pile, and a lot of the FWA gets blamed on that (when it's really just sloppy bookkeeping and even sloppier spending with poor oversight).
Kelsey Grammar may be a wingnut, but he was great in this pic.
Plucketeer
(12,882 posts)and the 5-sided place plays him like a fiddle.
MADem
(135,425 posts)It is astounding what he has been able to achieve despite the intransigence and bitter hatred of Tortoiseboy and his crew of mendacious n'er do wells.
The oversight process at the Pentagon, too, runs at a glacial pace but GOP obstruction has made change (never mind hope) difficult in any event.
HRC used to serve on SASC--she knows how those clowns can toss up bullshit mixed with fairy dust and try to blow it in the eyes of those who are determined to get to the bottom of things. She can see it coming a mile away. It should help her to know how that game is played.
Ilsa
(61,696 posts)Just watch. Someone will claim the $400 mil to Iran is rolled up in this.
MADem
(135,425 posts)as a downpayment for weapons/aviation systems that WE never delivered.
I have to laugh at all these ransom accusations--they are utter wingnutty bullshit.
If you have to pay a "ransom," the best way to do it is to use the KIDNAPPER's money, I suppose....!
Ilsa
(61,696 posts)After providing the basics of the history (1979) to some friends online, they still didn't get that it was Iran's money. I had to explain mechanics of the account freeze, and that the Iran deal is helping prevent a war between Iran and Israel, drawing in Russia and Syria.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)stopped them?
MrScorpio
(73,631 posts)Javaman
(62,532 posts)lie about what you need the money for, cook the books, make so them so incredibly complicated that no one wants to try and figure them out, laugh all the way to the bank.
colsohlibgal
(5,275 posts)Google Donald Rumsfeld 9/10/01
MADem
(135,425 posts)Talk about money pits!