DoD - $8.5 Trillion Unaccounted for since 1996

[erowe1]

Want to Cut Government Waste? Find the $8.5 Trillion the Pentagon Can’t Account For

If you thought the botched rollout of Obamacare, the government shutdown, or the sequester represented Washington dysfunction at its worst, wait until you hear about the taxpayer waste at the Defense Department.

Special Enterprise Reporter Scot Paltrow unearthed the “high cost of the Pentagon’s bad bookkeeping” in a Reuters investigation. It amounts to $8.5 trillion in taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon since 1996 that has never been accounted for. (The year 1996 was the first that the Pentagon should have been audited under a law requiring audits of all government departments. Oh, and by the way, the Pentagon is the only federal agency that has not complied with this law.)

Read the rest.
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/want-cut-government-waste-8-5-trillion-pentagon-142321339.html

[Ronin Truth]

Gee, all of those black projects REALLY start to add up. :eek:

[eduardo89]

That doesn't make sense. The DoD's budget since 2000 has been under $7 trillion, including Iraq and Afghanistan war spending.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bb/U.S._Defense_Spending_Trends_2001-2014.png

[KCIndy]

I'll bet the spending on "stupid unproductive stuff" is twice that.

[erowe1]

That doesn't make sense. The DoD's budget since 2000 has been under $7 trillion, including Iraq and Afghanistan war spending.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bb/U.S._Defense_Spending_Trends_2001-2014.png

Thanks for pointing that out.

I didn't check the source at first. But now that I have, the claim being made is that the DoD has spent $8.5 total since 1996, which your numbers since 2000 fit well, and that they have not accounted for how that money was spent as that 1996 law requires them to.
http://www.reuters.com/investigates/pentagon/#article/part1


Because of its persistent inability to tally its accounts, the Pentagon is the only federal agency that has not complied with a law that requires annual audits of all government departments. That means that the $8.5 trillion in taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon since 1996, the first year it was supposed to be audited, has never been accounted for. That sum exceeds the value of China’s economic output last year.

[eduardo89]

Thanks for pointing that out.

I didn't check the source at first. But now that I have, the claim being made is that the DoD has spent $8.5 total since 1996, which your numbers since 2000 fit well, and that they have not accounted for how that money was spent as that 1996 law requires them to.
http://www.reuters.com/investigates/pentagon/#article/part1

That's what I suspected. It's not that the money has simply gone missing, they just haven't kept to the accounting and auditing requirements specified by the 1996 law.

The headline is a bit misleading, then. The money hasn't vanished, just hasn't been accounted for the way the law says it must be.

[kcchiefs6465]

That's what I suspected. It's not that the money has simply gone missing, they just haven't kept to the accounting and auditing requirements specified by the 1996 law.

The headline is a bit misleading, then. The money hasn't vanished, just hasn't been accounted for the way the law says it must be.
Some of it has simply gone missing. Their books are so bad that they simply add shit up to equal what they were given. Thus you see the $800 screw driver or $2,500 toilet seat. That's why they haven't complied with the law. They can't. They've admitted as much. As I recall, "The money might as well have been thrown from an airplane for as much as we know what happened to it"-- US Air Force when pressed about their bookkeeping issues and the fact they were missing millions of dollars.

In their defense, it is such an absurdly large amount of money to try and keep track of. A few million here and there gone missing when you get some 600 billion a year doesn't seem so bad.

ETA: That quote was not from the US Air Force. Sorry about the mistake.

[kcchiefs6465]

According to the General Accounting Office (GAO), 80% of the Navy's purchase orders are inaccurate. An Air Force purchase of $888,000 in ammunition was listed at $333 million-- an increase of 37,500%. In 1992 alone, the Army Corps of Engineers "lost" $1.3 billion worth of equipment.
Take the Rich Off Welfare, Mark Zepezauer, pg. 56

[eduardo89]

An Air Force purchase of $888,000 in ammunition was listed at $333 million-- an increase of 37,500%.

Only in government can you get away with that.

[kcchiefs6465]

Only in government can you get away with that.
And people want to give them a bigger budget.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

[eduardo89]

And people want to give them a bigger budget.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

I can see you don't support the troops.

[Carson]

Gee, all of those black projects REALLY start to add up. :eek:

I remember stories of during one of the wars of them flying in huge cargo planes with pallets of cash. Also something about it being handed out in bundles for favors(?). Then came the stories of little accountability.

[kcchiefs6465]

I remember stories of during one of the wars of them flying in huge cargo planes with pallets of cash. Also something about it being handed out in bundles for favors(?). Then came the stories of little accountability.
500 million in cash delivered to Baghdad that was unaccounted for. I watched the hearings on that one a couple years back. They spoke cavalierly about such a small amount of money. And when Ron Paul brought this up to Ben Bernanke, Bernanke acted as if he was unaware what he was talking about.

There have been other rumors of cash flights in conflicts around the world that probably were based in truth. And as I recall, the Iraqi Central Bank was robbed of what, a billion dollars. I think they consider that to be the largest heist in world history. (Aside from the Federal Reserve's schemes.. which of course, are always conveniently ignored.)

[Ronin Truth]

I remember stories of during one of the wars of them flying in huge cargo planes with pallets of cash. Also something about it being handed out in bundles for favors(?). Then came the stories of little accountability.

That's one of the reasons that we haven't experienced the hyperinflation from all of the money "printed from thin air" over the decades. Much of it was exported overseas to screw up other folks economies.

[Zippyjuan]

Maybe the floppy discs got misplaced?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/07/us/politics/slowly-they-modernize-a-federal-agency-that-still-uses-floppy-disks.html?_r=0

[phill4paul]

We'd like to give you a full accounting but unfortunately a terrorist flew into the Pentagon and destroyed the pertinent records.

[oyarde]

For those who are unaware . There are two large problems ;1) Procurement . Procurement itself is the third largest amount , running , oh ,without checking , close to 150 billion per year. Or , ( to put it in context ) nearly as much as the second highest item , which is all of the military personnel, total , together . Procurement should cost , very little ( I could run the whole dang thing starting next week , with people I pick at a 90 % reduction , to start with , probably much lower after 3 yrs ) . There is that problem. Next , #2) Congress , elected Rep's protecting high paying jobs in the district . The highest item in that budget is , Operations & Maint . Guessing here , but say , just less than 300 Billion. If you want an efficient military , it may be wise for the military to choose the weapons and spending , with oversight. You know , the real soldiers that have to use the weapons .What you really have is something different.

[oyarde]

Gee, all of those black projects REALLY start to add up. :eek:

Well , not really , those are run by the CIA ,etc and with zero accountability .

[anaconda]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU4GdHLUHwU

[Ronin Truth]

Well , not really , those are run by the CIA ,etc and with zero accountability .

I was also figuring in the black ops multiple "Deep Underground Military Bases" AKA D.U.M.B. that are kept off the books.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEDAE_9v4h0

[mrsat_98]

Yall keep it down , we would not want an airplane parked on the front page of RPF