slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/7/us-military-wasting-money/

U.S. military wasting your money. Trump wants to boost defense budget, but Pentagon can't account for overspending.

By Renee Garfinkel

Financial mismanagement is rampant at the Pentagon. And the Trump administration wants to give them tens of billions dollars more.

A staggering report by the Defense Department’s Inspector General last summer found the Army made $2.8 trillion worth of wrongful adjustments to accounting entries in one quarter alone in 2015, and $6.5 trillion for the year. The Army lacked receipts and invoices to support those numbers or simply made them up.

The Army – the institution in which Americans have the most confidence, according to a Gallup poll – received taxpayer dollars and cavalierly made up numbers to account for where those dollars went!

To continue to deserve our confidence, the army will need to get its accounting straight. Politically and fiscally it would be foolhardy to increase the military’s budget when it so obviously can’t manage the money it currently has.

The army’s bookkeeping problems are not new. For years, the Inspector General – the Defense Department’s official auditor – has inserted a disclaimer on all military annual reports. The accounting is so unreliable that “the basic financial statements may have undetected misstatements that are both material and pervasive.”

Unreliable accounting. Pervasive, material “misstatements.” These are words that don’t inspire confidence.

According to Jack Armstrong, a former Defense Inspector General official in charge of auditing the Army General Fund, the practice of cooking the army’s books was so widely accepted that some employees of the Defense Finance and Accounting Services (DFAS), which handles Defense Department accounting, referred to the task of preparing the Army’s year-end statements as “the grand plug.” “Plug” is accounting jargon for inserting made-up numbers.

Waste at the Pentagon is nothing new, but it may have soared to new heights. Multiple financial scandals have emerged from U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, with ProPublica estimating the cost of wasteful and misguided expenditures to be $17 billion.

While imaginative bookkeeping takes place at the Department Of Defense, and wild spending goes on far away from home in Afghanistan…who’s simply minding the store?

Just last week, two defense contractors in southern California pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and file false claims. Their companies, Veteran Logistics Inc., Industrial Xchange Inc. and Boston Laser Technology Inc. had been selling supplies to the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy and other federal agencies for years. The companies had sold the military $45 million worth of mostly incorrect and overpriced products.

Why would it take years to discover that contractors were selling one thing and delivering something else? Why? Probably because the tap is open with a flow of OPM (other people’s money) and no one is minding the store.

Back during the Reagan administration, military overspending gave us memorable stories of excess, such as $600 toilet seats. We thought corrections had since been made to prevent the most egregious mismanagement, but apparently we were wrong. Today overspending continues. There have been reports of the army spending $8,000 on a gear worth $500.

Because the Pentagon can’t pass an audit, we can’t know for sure just how much it overspends for what, and how much excess, unnecessary or inappropriate equipment and supplies it is buying.

What we do know, though, is that until the Pentagon can pass an audit and provide an honest accounting of the money it gets and spends, it would be very wrong to trust them with more.

bahmer

I've read it all before and Obama raised our national debt by trillions as well so lets start auditing.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

Unfortunately, the auditing has been delayed by all administrations our entire lifetimes. Without pointing fingers, I think that is the gist of the article.

moldyoldy

You ignore the fact that bush put his wars on the credit card to be payed for later by the next president.

bahmer

That is why Trump was elected this last e******n people are getting sick and tired of politicians and thought that a businessman would be someone who could get something done. But instead of getting behind him and helping to see if some of these things could be accomplished we are fighting him tooth and nail as well as ourselves and then wondering why nothing gets done. The swamp is the one that is behind this but we are all so mired in our political parties that we can't see the forest for the trees. Most of us that v**ed for Trump wanted a change of pace and not the same oh same oh all over again type e******n. Hillary was part of the swamp as well as Obama and most all of the republican establishment who would you all put in there that will get the job done. Who will do the will of the people? If you have some one tell us and let us know who it would that is without fault and without sin that you can get behind. One who has never lusted after a woman and is squeaky clean?

moldyoldy

There is so much that you choose not to see about trump, but all of his minions are starting to seek immunity..

permafrost Loc: Minnesota

Now trump does not want Pompaio to attend the meeting with NK.. looks like all pretense is over..

rats are leaving the ship, pretending foreign policy matters to the orange thing, could that be ending too??

moldyoldy

He is blaming China for not saving him with NK.

eagleye13 Loc: Fl

There is much you ignore about crooked Hillary, the Obama Deep State and MSM's protection of her.

Hillary the Scandals
http://youtu.be/BYKAzJcU-DA

A refresher is in order:
Liar Liar Pants On Fire Hillary Song; https://youtu.be/kXjbXGyQDsE

bahmer

Definition Of Insanity Is Doing The Same Thing Over And Over And Expecting Different Results. That is why we v**ed for Trump as opposed to another politician like Hillary Clinton or one of the other GOP politicians.

Andy

IF I make a mistake and hit the wrong button.. just tell me.. so I don't repeat it... Im all for anyone wanting to come here.. but they must respect the laws of this country not the country they came from... I don't care if they don't assimilate.. cause I know that learning a new language is probably hard for older people... to learn... but it's the WAY of life that bothers me.. their methods are totally different than ours.. Not Mexico.. cause we are the same there. but like the Muslims wanna dress in that wh**ever you call it.. and walk the streets of the country.. When I was visiting my daughter in Austin.. we went shopping at one of the malls.. and you would be surprised at the Muslim head gear and clothes they had on.. one would think you are in another country.. but should they be allowed to wear those things.. what if they carried guns or knives underneath ….. then if they got mad. they could jerk it out and stab you to death... How are you gonna change their head gear or dress code.. they wear and want to live here.. why don't they stay in their own country then... I remember when I believe it was England some years back.. invited all the Muslims into their country to live.. they were overwhelmed with them in coming to live there and the British.. the lady President if she is called that. made a big mistake by not forbidding them to continue with their dress code.. if they want to wear such garb.. then stay in your own country... I feel we allow too many of those foreigners in our country to set up shop here... which are totally different from ours.. the Mexicans are pretty much the same as ours..

eagleye13 Loc: Fl

Awesome post JW.
You nailed what the Left has been, and is doing to america using immigrants.


"I had most of this written when I hit a wrong key and it all disappeared so I am writing it again but posting it here.
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permafrost wrote:
"...Remember the olden days when the Poles, fins(sic), Italians and others spoke their own language, lived in the same areas, had their own stores, shops and dreamed of the "old country"?

It seems very natural for people who came to this country from anyother country, (even the ME) to stay together, feeling comfortable with fellow immegrants (sic)..

What do you think assimilation is? The Somalia(sic) in Minnesota have community. they join in and participate in the local govt, economy.."

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No, Frosty, I do not remember the 'olden days' the way you seem to remember them. Your memory seems to incorporate a lot of old movies and hackneyed stereotypes rather than actual history when it comes to immigrants. I know because I am an immigrant. I have associated with immigrants all of my life... legal and illegal, I might add.

There are traditionally two kinds of immigrants, financial opportunists and those who want to become Americans. There is a world of difference between the two.

Financial opportunists are to some degree the way you describe them but the others are quite different. I belong to the 'others' group.

Financial opportunists are here for the money, benefits and nothing more. They maintain their language and customs and have no intention to assimilate. They are quite satisfied to be what they are and they teach their children to be the same. A lot of them are very nice people but they are not Americans by any stretch of the imagination, no matter how many generations of them there are here. They have little or nothing to do with Americans outside of the necessary contacts.

The 'others' are here to find a better life than the one they knew in the "old Country". They speak their mother tongue at home but never in public. That is because it is easier and not because of embarrassment or shame. They want to be seen as Americans. They want their children to be Americans so they encourage them to participate in the American way of life and adopt American manners and customs.

******* Until the lunatic fringe took over the Democrat Party, the only thing impeding assimilation for us 'others' was the acceptance or rejection of our neighbors. Since those Progressives have had power in the culture, they have set numerous other roadblocks in our way. They concocted an insidious form of discrimination called multi-culturism. In the guise of open mindedness and blanket acceptance, they have hyphenated us, deprived many of us of the national language and sought to segregate us in ghettos. Those ghettos arise when we do not fit in with the general population. In short, Progressives have created a situation in which your vision of the immigrant is becoming a reality; separate by custom, isolated by language and dependent for survival on government handouts.

To make the t***sition from the great American melting pot in which everyone could participate, Progressives have sought to destroy all standards of immigration to produce a disintegrated and disjointed society. As a result, we now have a third type of immigrant, those who want nothing to do with Americans or Americanism but want to t***sfer their home conditions to the USA...

All my life I wanted to become an American. In my old age, I have discovered that I have always been an American. I might have known it much sooner had not so many well meaning and not so well meaning people made certain I knew I wasn't one." - JW

eagleye13 Loc: Fl

Andy; you are responding to the post above; AND hit Quote Reply to see the post also.