Dummy Boy Loc: Michigan

The Defense Department over the years has been notorious for its lax accounting practices. The Pentagon has never completed an audit of how they actually spend the trillions of dollars on wars, equipment, personnel, housing, healthcare and procurements.

An increasingly impatient Congress has demanded that the Army achieve “audit readiness” for the first time by Sept. 30, 2017, so that lawmakers can get a better handle on military spending. But Pentagon watchdogs think that may be mission impossible, and for good reason.

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2016/07/31/Pentagon-s-Sloppy-Bookkeeping-Means-65-Trillion-Can-t-Pass-Audit

My question: Why should any department establish a budget if the pentagon, constantly ignores fundamentals for creating one.

This is an organization 20 years ago, told their enlisted men, to apply for food stamps. So where does the money go? Oh, they ship to Iran in Planes.

Also, see this Reuters Report

http://www.reuters.com/investigates/pentagon/#article/part2

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

The Pentagon has numerous "black budget", or off book, operations. Many of these are not under the oversight of Congress, the service Secretaries or the Secretary of Defense. To keep these items off the books, money is diverted from other budgeted items - and a forensic audit would expose these and the people running them, probably leading to treason charges. This is an ages old tactic used by Government, Government agencies, businesses and even individuals.

The edict to get "Audit ready" actually means rewriting the "books", so as to cause the missing money to disappear back into the budget. Bear in mind that many individual Congress members are often in collusion in these black budget items and also don't want to be exposed. A typical tactic to divert funds, is to engineer cost overruns on a budgeted item, even though no real cost overruns exist. Look to every DoD contract and the amount of money spent on them in excess of the budget, i.e. cost overruns and you'll get a more accurate amount.

bmac32 Loc: West Florida

Don't get it! From 1972 until 1978 our budget for the air terminal was 1.2 to 1.7 million and we had to account for every penny or the following year out allotment was cut to two years before. The year I got there MAC had not been paid for any cargo movement, no payment for any passenger t***sport over a 4 year period and they had been cut to 1/2 million, just enough money to keep it open.

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

Nailed it you did!!

One. They don't want oversight..
Two, they don't want disclosure..
Three, they run a racketeering operation, slush fund for the government to hijack when needed, yet leave our soldiers with the bare minimum...

DOD CONTRACTS are a joke...Worked with more than a few in bid pricing...They will literally in the second bid request tell you they need it to include allowance for xy&z under the auspicious that it may be needed later.. In doing so now eliminates special approval requests later, something they frown upon...If your close in the bid you get notice of such to include approved "sub contractors to use", if needed...

It's a money laundering operation of excessive charges they promote..

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

Yep. Remember years ago the "scandal" about the $300 hammers and $600 toilet seats for the P-3 Orion? We saw how quickly DoD blamed the contractors, who then blamed the contract mangers, who then blamed the.............until everyone forgot all about it and they went back to business as usual. It still tickles me to see high ranking officers "overseeing" contracts before they retire, begin working for the selfsame contractors the day after they retire - and no one raises an eyebrow. It's just how s**t is done.

bmac32 Loc: West Florida

Lockheed President Lawrence Kitchen sent a telegram to Navy Secretary John Lehman on Tuesday saying that Lockheed would cut the cost of the toilet part to $100 each from the original price of $640.09.

The part in question is a molded fiberglass cover that encloses the stainless steel bowl and plumbing of the toilet on the Navy anti-submarine patrol aircraft.

The Navy had ordered 54 of the units at an original total cost of $34,564.86. In the course of a Navy audit, Burbank-based Lockheed told the Navy last week that it had overcharged for the covers by $4,600.

Lockheed agreed to refund the difference, a company spokesman said Tuesday.

But the matter did not die. This week several congressmen alleged in hearings that Lockheed had charged $600 for "toilet seats."

The Pentagon issued a statement Monday saying that it was investigating the high cost of the item. As national interest in the issue mounted, Kitchen decided to cut the price.

The firm says it is losing a considerable amount in the gesture. A spokesman suggested that the Navy try to find a cheaper producer of the unit.

Kitchen said in his wire to Lehman that Lockheed earned $4.1 million on $40.5 million in spare parts sales on the P-3 Orion in 1984, a pretax profit of slightly more than 10%, which Kitchen said "is not out of hand."

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

Yeah, I've seen some of those contracts, that charge for so many paperclips, paper, cost of shredding documents, ink, pens, pencils, paper towels and everything including the kitchen sink. That actual, non accounting BS, profit is more like 30%, not 10%. The 10% is what is reported to the IRS - and the shareholders. Want to guess where the other 20% disappeared to?

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

Another, correctimondo, there, major!! Yes, I do remember that escapade and look at the next post, all these years later it's being questioned now?? Somebody got audited, or no, questioned and now they reel it in for a few months, unless that is a standing directive on bid allowance from now on..To offset instead of needing 10 restrooms they will need 20, but only put in the 10....

Seen them do that on a lighting bid...Changed the type of ballast lighting to another. Re-bid needed, higher amount. But when job secured the blue prints called for the original lighting..

If they simply removed the money grabbing "overseers," they would see tremendous price changes..But that's not how the squeaky wheel rolls...

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

The way to have a smaller, leaner and more responsive Government, something no one in congress understands ( or really wants, no matter the campaign slogans ), is not through the Congressional Budget Office, Government Accounting Office, Bureau of Procurement, or anything other fancy shmancy and expensive office - they just need an Office of Common Sense (OCS), that disallows former or current politicians, bureaucrats or wannabe's to serve in it. Farmer Frank, small town baker Bob, 2 chair Salon Sally, single bay mechanic Mike and other "don't even make enough to be middle class" folks are needed. Anyone that can keep a family or small business alive in todays economy - has a HELL of a lot of common sense and knows how to apply it for maximum effect, any one of which has more common sense than the entire Federal Government combined.

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

Got to agree with you and those that are supposedly to over see are the biggest culprits to it..!!

It's all a swindling money laundering network from top, down...No one will rock the boat because they then cut them self out...

Your idea of common sense business people is exactly what is needed..Not bureaucracy filled with i***ts that leave millionaires when the change of command takes place...

Louie27 Loc: Peoria, AZ

I wish I could have been in that business with the government. As a electrical contractor we had to account for almost every part and where it went especially on any extras that were not in the contract. We had to prove what our cost was and could not have over a certain percentage of profit for any part and had to have daily, weekly and monthly logs for all of the labor used for each project. That was a pain especially when there were a number of projects being done each day. Doing it the way the big corporations do it I could have been a millionaire by now. I do not know how anyone controlling the buying of equipment could not see the fraud in those costs.

Dummy Boy Loc: Michigan

The highlight of the attached articles simply reflects upon poor accounting practices, as well as, some political palm greasing going on.

I've seen in non-government quoting practices, because a quote may not break down the cost of nails or concrete.

PeterS

Things go BOOM. You can't count everything!