Waste, fraud, abuse: U.S. Army fudged $2.8 trillion
If you happen to suffer from the seasonal irritation of a Republican congresscritter flogging all the waste, fraud, and abuse in Washington, ask them what they are doing about this $2.8 trillion dollar scandal:
Click here for reuse options!The United States Army’s finances are so jumbled it had to make trillions of dollars of improper accounting adjustments to create an illusion that its books are balanced.
The Defense Department’s Inspector General, in a June report, said the Army made $2.8 trillion in wrongful adjustments to accounting entries in one quarter alone in 2015, and $6.5 trillion for the year. Yet the Army lacked receipts and invoices to support those numbers or simply made them up.
As a result, the Army’s financial statements for 2015 were “materially misstated,” the report concluded. The “forced” adjustments rendered the statements useless because “DoD and Army managers could not rely on the data in their accounting systems when making management and resource decisions.”
Disclosure of the Army’s manipulation of numbers is the latest example of the severe accounting problems plaguing the Defense Department for decades.
Copyright 2016 Liberaland
By: dave-dr-gonzo
David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.
* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.
17 responses to Waste, fraud, abuse: U.S. Army fudged $2.8 trillion
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Budda August 20th, 2016 at 10:40
Well most anyone who served knows the waste that goes on.
Larry Schmitt August 20th, 2016 at 10:49
I was the budget officer for my unit at one point in my AF career, and I discovered that, the goal is not to save money by reducing spending, but to spend every dollar that is in your budget at the beginning of the year. Government logic says if you didn’t spend it all this year, you don’t need as much next year, so you don’t get as much. That’s an incentive to waste. The commander had me looking for things we could buy, unrelated to the mission, just to use up the budget. And that’s been going on for years, and no one makes an effort to change it. That’s our tax dollars going down the toilet. Imagine the same thing being done by every single military unit. And I’m sure the civilian agencies operate the same way. It’s very discouraging.
Tommie August 20th, 2016 at 12:10
Wow Larry, that had to suck, making you do something that you knew was wrong! Thanks for your service, I respect the military but I know it isn’t perfect!
Larry Schmitt August 20th, 2016 at 12:14
I was floored when I first learned how the game was played. And I don’t know how it can be fixed. It would require a lot of people in different agencies, starting with Congress, realizing what the problem is, and being willing to do something about it. And what are the odds of that happening?
Tommie August 20th, 2016 at 12:22
Very low since the gravy train must keep going!
Larry Schmitt August 20th, 2016 at 12:48
I’m sure the lobbyists and the jobs at stake enter into it.
arc99 August 20th, 2016 at 13:12
For what it is worth, corporate America works the same way.
In the company I work for, part of your performance evaluation is to make sure your project budget estimates are within 10% of the actual result.
So if you save 20% on your project, it is considered a performance shortcoming. In the next fiscal year, you will have to provide detailed justification to explain why the budget should not be decreased by 20%.
It is a strange strange world we live in….
MyDogsAreSmarterThanYou August 20th, 2016 at 13:33
Basically the same experience here as a company clerk. At the end of the quarter, Gunny hands you the Self-Serve card and tells you to spend it all. As a young Corporal it doesn’t really register, but as a middle-aged taxpayer trying to make ends meet this sort of system makes you furious.
Dwendt44 August 20th, 2016 at 13:55
My experience is similar to Larry’s below. Even squadron officers sometimes scratched their heads trying to figure out how to spend every dollar in their budget.
The factory I worked at until retiring at one time had an industrial supply company that would provide nearly everything the company needed to function from mops, gloves, cleaning supplies, etc. to larger more expensive items like tools, benches, tables, you name it. The contract was ‘see us first’ so even though we could have purchased some items cheaper locally, we had to buy from them and often wait for delivery. They got smart and ended that contract and issued company credit cards and watched those like a hawk.
Dwendt44 August 20th, 2016 at 13:57
The Army has a mandated contract to rebuild M-1 tanks. It doesn’t need them and doesn’t want them, but the Congressmen who’s district that company is in makes sure the Army doesn’t cancel that contract.
Larry Schmitt August 20th, 2016 at 14:02
Because everyone knows the military is a jobs program. And of course the defense contractors, some of the biggest corporations in the world. That’s why I will always be amazed that the BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure) got passed. It was written with an “all or nothing” requirement, and no matter how much individual congressmen bitched about it, the bases closed. That kind of thing has never happened before or since. And there are unneeded, and very expensive, weapons that Congress keeps going for all the services. Because it keeps getting them re-elected.
dewired4u August 20th, 2016 at 17:10
They are suppose to close more but it won’t happen because they are in gerrymandered safe districts and r states.
Budda August 20th, 2016 at 14:23
That’s John Boners district
bpollen August 20th, 2016 at 18:54
They DOD have to make planes that go directly to storage, can’t retire outdated ships, can’t retire outdated planes, can’t close surplus military bases, can’t close Guantanamo… each and every one an example of politics over national security.
coopctn@hotmail.com August 20th, 2016 at 20:02
Jimmy Carter wanted to start zero-based budgeting, which worked for him in GA, but congress killed. They haven’t changed.
amersham1046 August 20th, 2016 at 21:13
DoD feather bedding and mismanagement starts in Congress
oldfart August 21st, 2016 at 10:12
They don’t call it the “military industrial COMPLEX ” for nothing.