Posted on 03/03/2025 6:02:50 AM PST by MtnClimber
To crack down on Pentagon spending, the Defense Department adopted a program in 2015 to track spending on lodging and entertainment. But so few officials used the Visa government travel charge card that nearly 4 million card transactions worth $1.2 billion couldn’t be reviewed in enough detail to check for misuse, abuse, and fraud, the Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General said last month.
The travel card failure is just one example of why the Pentagon has never passed an annual financial audit. Since the 1990s, every federal agency has been subject to audits, but the Pentagon refused to conduct any until 2018. With its shoddy bookkeeping, uncounted inventories, and efforts to improve doomed by non-compliance, it has flunked every audit since. The situation is so tangled that when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth vowed that the Pentagon would finally earn auditors’ approval, the earliest he could promise a passing grade was 2028. There’s skepticism that the situation could be turned around even by then.
The Pentagon has never faced consequences for failing an audit, though 80% of voters say that it should have to earn a thumbs up in the yearly accounting review before getting a budget increase. Nonetheless, its budget has risen every year since 2015.
The Pentagon’s accounting mess reflects financial disorder widespread in the executive branch. In what has become an almost annual event, the Government Accountability Office reported last month that it “was unable to provide an opinion on the reliability of the federal government’s consolidated financial statements for fiscal year 2024 and 2023.” As it has in previous cycles, it stressed “the need to address serious deficiencies in federal financial management and address the federal government’s unsustainable long-term fiscal path.”
This is the chaos facing Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearinvestigations.com ...
I am sure that inventory losses are a big part of the problem.
Funneling to black budgets is the actual reason.
Seems no one can count in DC. The Pentagon and DOGE can’t always account accurately.
And then there's the natural incompetence of bureaucracies in general, and the stove-piping of the Pentagon—where different departments operate in silos and don’t share information effectively.
On top of that, the Pentagon's financial structure is a tangled mess of outdated systems, classified budgets, and political incentives that reward inefficiency rather than cost-effectiveness.
“accounting for large amounts of money is inversely proportional to how much is involved” is the scientific principle involved. accounting 101.
Other than that, I suppose they do OK. ;-D
This is not uncommon, a lot of cities,counties and various organizations do this also. If you are a “Vendor” and want to get paid via check/billing there is a shitload of requirements and paperwork that needs to be done in advance, but if take credit cards, someone has one to give you with NO HASSLE.
[The Defense Department adopted a program in 2015 to track spending on lodging and entertainment.]
ENTERTAINMENT, LODGING?
The military is there to protect us, not party.
Because they are somehow compromised and on the take???
Nonsensical doubletalk. Four million transactions totaling $1.2 Billion - and they can't review it for misuse/fraud/etc. because too few people used the travel cards? Each card account should be scrutinized for these things independently, each and every billing cycle. The total number of travel card users has no bearing on this process.
Just more obfuscation.
Can’t hit anything? Perhaps they are would-be Empire stormtroopers. :)
Use AI algorithms to capture and examine every expense report. The worst offenders get fired first (and if fraud exists, then also get charged.) Then run the process again and again. Rinse and repeat !!
Treat the Pentagon like the Mafia.
Note down every license plate in the parking lot and have a full IRS audit:
https://www.ancc.org/Club/Scripts/Home/home.asp?
LIFE LONG ACCOUNTING PERSON HERE:
I WILL PUT MY $$$ ON MUSK TO BE ACCURATE.
BUT I WILL BE SURPRISED IF HE CAN EVEN OBTAIN CORRECT RECORDS
A good accountant can quickly see/find most bad accounting and its underlying root cause. Musk & company seem to not applying good accounting technics when they do their query’s.
If you have suggestions contact them.
We are in all in this together!
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