The Pentagon ' s Accounting Problem

The Pentagon ’s inability to pass an audit, after years of outright stonewalling, followed by many more years of foot-dragging, is suddenly a hot topic. A few weeks ago,Rolling Stone featured a scathing expos é highlighting the Pentagon ’s inability to count.Writer Matt Taibbi explainsAhead of misappropriation, fraud, theft, overruns, contracting corruption and other abuses that are almost certainly still going on, the Pentagon ’s first problem is its books. It’s the world’s largest producer of wrong numbers, an ingenious bureaucratic defense system that hides all the other rats’ nests underneath.These and other stories seem to have prompted House Armed Services Committee ChairmanAdam Smith (D-WA) to deliver a stern message to officials in the Department of Defense. The Trump administration has requested $750 billion for the Pentagon, but, Smith noted, “We literally don’t know where a chunk of that $750 billion is going to go. We can identify some of it here and there, but by any normal accounting measure, you can’t tell us where you’re spending your money, or how much inventory you have.”Taibbi continues:If and when the defense review is ever completed, we ’re likely to find a pile of Enrons, with the military’s losses and liabilities hidden in Enron-like special-purpose vehicles, assets systematically overvalued, monies Congress approved for X feloniously diverted to Program Y, contractors paid twice, parts bought twice, repairs done unnecessaril ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs