Pentagon remains stubbornly unable to account for its billions

[LiberalAndProud]

By Julia Harteemail

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/08/03/17735/pentagon-remains-stubbornly-unable-account-its-billions

A celebration by the Marine Corps of its accounting prowess turns out to have been premature, with a discrepancy in a key audit of $800 million

Defense Department officials celebrated after their auditor certified that the Marine Corps had successfully accounted for all the money it received and spent in 2012. They said it was a key milestone in the Pentagon’s long, troubled quest to earn that certification for all its billions of dollars in annual spending.

Then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and the comptroller at the time, Robert Hale, who oversaw the Corps’s work, marked the occasion at a February 2014 event in the building’s Hall of Heroes, where they presented a framed copy of the certification to the Corps’s assistant commandant. Hagel boasted that “we don’t spend a lot of time using big megaphones to tout our great accomplishments… We get the job done. This is another example of, we’re getting the job done.”

The self-congratulations turned to embarrassment this March, however, when the Pentagon’s auditor suddenly reversed itself and withdrew its endorsement, saying newly discovered facts called into question “the completeness of the information on which we based our opinion,” according to a memorandum sent by a senior auditor to the Pentagon’s Comptroller and other top Pentagon officials.

...

The GAO report further said these shortcomings in the Marine Corps’s accounting are typical, not rare. The same undocumented transactions and unreliable methods of financial record-keeping plague the Defense Department’s entire accounting apparatus, and threaten its ability to meet a congressionally imposed deadline for becoming fully auditable in two years, according to the report.

Pretty soon it adds up to real money.

[LuvNewcastle]

1. What's most annoying is that so

little is said about it. At first, you hear some outrage, but then it's wink, wink -- we know where it's going. All the secrecy breeds corruption, and we have a ton of secrets.

[Enthusiast]

6. +100%!

You love Newcastle brown ale? Good stuff.

[LuvNewcastle]

13. I used to drink it all the time.

I don't drink as much now, but I still love to have me some when I go out.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

2. In the 1990s, the Government Accounting Office tried an audit of the DoD

After about three years work, they gave up.

[NYCButterfinger]

3. I want a strong national defense, but the Pentagon

does have some wasteful spending. Secy. Ash Carter needs to focus on the veterans in this country, along with Veterans Secy. Robert McDonald. We need to also have a better fighting capabilities for the military should this country go to another war, hopefully any word never happens again in the Middle East. We need to get out of the Middle East.

[The Wizard]

4. The day before 9-11-01

A report emerged that said the Pentagon couldn't account for over a trillion dollars. And the day after 9-11-01 the results of the 2000 Florida election analysis was released saying Gore actually won.
It's all in the timing. Anyone believing the Bush cartel isn't a continuing criminal enterprise must be watching Pox News.

[Enthusiast]

7. +100%!

[gratuitous]

5. On another thread . . .

On another thread, I advocated for a guaranteed basic income and another poster challenged me to finance it. I suggested our annual defense budget could be trimmed by a couple of days' spending. Maybe I was being a bit miserly; the Defense Department could stand a little more trimming than that, and then perhaps our country could afford to feed, clothe and house its citizens.

[Enthusiast]

8. +100%!

[Enthusiast]

9. Kicked and recommended!

[alarimer]

10. How about having each dollar that's unaccounted for be deducted from next year's budget?

Sorry, Marines, but you just lost $800 million because of your sloppy accounting practices. It obviously wasn't really important, so your budget will be that much smaller next year.

Clearly, the Pentagon has way too much money.

[SheilaT]

11. Good idea.

Too bad it's so totally practical it will never be implemented.

[merrily]

12. My first hand knowledge story about the military budget:

A relative was in the Army, stationed in Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn. http://www.hamilton.army.mil/


The librarian told him to order all the books on some bookseller's list whose titles began with letters A through M. My relative questioned the request. The reply: Our budget for next year is based on what we spend this year. the fiscal year is almost over and we have not spent enough.

Granted, in the scheme of the entire military budget, it was peanuts. But respect for the work taxpayers do to support the federal government was definitely not a factor.

[phantom power]

14. beat me to it

[City Lights]

15. Cut 'em off!

They need to get their shit together, pronto.