Most of my regular visitors know that I think the War Department’s budget is way too high…..basically because the War Department has no idea where the money is or where the purchases have gone…..
The War Department has failed yet another IG inspection……
The Pentagon failed its sixth audit in a row last month.
And “failed” is putting it generously. The department actually received a “disclaimer of opinion.” According to the Government Accountability Office, that means “auditors were unable to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a basis for an audit opinion.” So the outcome is more like an “incomplete” than an abject failure.
But semantics aside, one major reason the Pentagon keeps failing audits is because it can’t keep track of its property. Last year, the Pentagon couldn’t properly account for a whopping 61% of its $3.5 trillion in assets. That figure increased this year, with the department insufficiently documenting 63% of its now $3.8 trillion in assets. Military contractors possess many of these assets, but to an extent unbeknownst to the Pentagon.
The GAO has flagged this issue for the department since at least 1981. Yet the latest audit states that the Pentagon’s target to correct insufficient accounting department-wide is fiscal year 2031. In the meantime, contractors are producing weapon systems and spare parts that they may already possess — an incredible waste of taxpayer dollars.
The F-35 program is a great example. The Pentagon technically owns the global pool of spare parts for all variations of the F-35, but the program’s contractors — mainly Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney — manage those parts. According to the GAO, the Pentagon relies on contractors to record the “cost, total quantity, and locations of [F-35] spare parts in the global spares pool.” The department has estimated that the value of F-35 parts in the possession of contractors is over $220 billion, but the GAO reports that this is “likely significantly understated.”
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/pentagon-audit-2666415734/
Think about that….if you had a business and your employees had no idea where 61% of you inventory was….would you keep them on after 6 straight failing reports?
Looks like these toads spend money just to spend money….another great trait of the War Department….no accountability.
Is the inventory really missing or did some toad pocket the cash earmarked for the inventory?
Plus if all this concern for fiscal responsibility and no one in Congress sees concerned about this ‘missing’ stuff…..why is that?
Just wondering.
Turn The Page!
I read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
Nothing like money ever just goes missing –in a bureaucracy, someone has had a payday or two I will wager.
My thought as well John chuq
As you said, this kind of crap has been going on for decades and no one in Congress seems to care. It’s become even more serious since, in an effort to “save money”, the military has been off-loading, so to speak, more and more of its functions to private contractors. Food service, housing, a lot of logistics, even security functions have been shifted to private contractors with the claim that private companies can do it cheaper. And they do, at first. They low-ball bids at first, and then as time passes gradually ramp up the costs until those services are costing more than they would have if the military had done it themselves. And congress won’t do anything about it because of the legalized bribery system we have that is laughingly called campaign financing and lobbying.
I still think it is more expensive to have the contractors than if the military was to do it once again….Congress has cash pipeline to the defense people….Lobbyists make sure the Congress is well compensated. chuq
It almost always ends up with private contractors costing more than it would have if the agency had done the job themselves. They found that out the hard way here in Wisconsin. When the GOP got control of both the legislature and the governor’s office one of the first things they did was fire almost all of the engineers working in the Dept. of Transportation claiming it would save money. Of course they neglected to say that several state legislators were receiving large campaign donations from various engineering firms. Then it was discovered that outside contractors were costing DOT more than double what they’d been paying their in-house engineers. Milwaukee county jail and the city jail farmed out prisoner health care and now, after millions of dollars in lawsuits about poor health care and even prisoner deaths due to the outside contractor, the contractor has conveniently declared bankruptcy after yet another multi-million dollar lawsuit has popped up over another prisoner death, leaving the county and city on the hook not only for prisoner health care for to pay for the lawsuits as well. Yep, outsourcing works real well (where is a sarcasm font when you need one?)
There lies the problem….legislators can be bought….then there are the private prisons…judges make a fortune off of kickbacks in my state. Yep contractors save money (I also want sarcasm font) chuq
Can’t account for it, or deliberately won’t account for it? God knows how much stuff has gone unaccounted for into ‘Black Ops’. Then there is the corruption angle, of things paid for but never actually delivered. (Or even manufactured)
Someone is creaming a lot of money off the top.
Best wishes, Pete.
A lot of cash indeed….I think some of that inventory is on paper only….cash is in the Caymans chuq