Political Insider – In typical Groundhog Day fashion, the Pentagon has failed yet another audit. Yet, for the most part, nobody seems to care in the media or government. When you fail year after year, it becomes the rule versus the exception to fail basic standards.
This recent failure marks the fifth year that the Defense Department has failed to meet the audit requirements set by Congress. That’s right, dear reader, your former War Department can’t fully account for all of its assets.
So how bad was it? If you ask the lead money man of the five-sided building, it wasn’t that bad; I mean, it’s only a couple trillion dollars worth of stuff that we can’t find, that’s not that bad.
It’s Bad
Of the 27 agencies audited within the Department of Defense, only seven received a passing grade. To put some dollar amounts to that, only 39% of the $3.5 trillion in assets are accounted for, leaving a deficit of about $2.2 trillion in assets unaccounted for.
In typical Groundhog Day fashion, the Pentagon has failed yet another audit. Yet, for the most part, nobody seems to care in the media or government. When you fail year after year, it becomes the rule versus the exception to fail basic standards.
This recent failure marks the fifth year that the Defense Department has failed to meet the audit requirements set by Congress. That’s right, dear reader, your former War Department can’t fully account for all of its assets.
So how bad was it? If you ask the lead money man of the five-sided building, it wasn’t that bad; I mean, it’s only a couple trillion dollars worth of stuff that we can’t find, that’s not that bad.
It’s Bad
Of the 27 agencies audited within the Department of Defense, only seven received a passing grade. To put some dollar amounts to that, only 39% of the $3.5 trillion in assets are accounted for, leaving a deficit of about $2.2 trillion in assets unaccounted for.
It can be challenging to conceptualize numbers this big in an agency that takes up over half of the discretionary funding in our country. To break down a bit what we mean when we refer to assets, this includes everything from the below list, which isn’t all-encompassing:
- 2.9 million military personnel
- Equipment and weapons
- 19,700 aircraft
- 290 ships
- Buildings and supplies spread out over 4,860 installations and sites worldwide
The audit also encompasses activities like the DOD health care system, which provides medical care for 9.6 million active-duty retirees and their families.
Suppose you’ve never been to a military base. In that case, they are like small cities with their own police departments, schools, transportation systems, and housing structure.
So these audits don’t just cover our wartime assets, such as bullets and warheads, but it also covers the department’s personnel care structures, such as beans and beds. So not knowing where over 60% of their assets are doesn’t just speak volumes about the DOD’s ability to take the fight to the bad guys but also their ability to care for the American warfighter.
For those with a long memory, this kind of outrageous irresponsibility isn’t new.
Readers may recall a very interesting press conference on September 10, 2001, when Donald Rumsfeld said the Pentagon couldn’t account for $2.3 trillion. …. Read More
