Pentagon reportedly buried study exposing $125 billion in waste

Senior defense officials suppressed a study documenting $125 billion worth of administrative waste at the Pentagon out of fears that Congress would use its findings to cut the defense budget, the Washington Post reported late Monday.

The report, which was issued in January 2015 by the advisory Defense Business Board (DBB), called for a series of reforms that would have saved the department $125 billion over the next five years.

Among its other findings, the report showed that the Defense Department was paying just over 1 million contractors, civilian employees and uniformed personnel to fill back-office jobs. That number nearly matches the amount of active duty troops — 1.3 million, the lowest since 1940.

The Post reported that some Pentagon leaders feared the study's findings would undermine their claims that years of budget sequestration had left the military short of money. In response, they imposed security restrictions on information used in the study and even pulled a summary report from a Pentagon website.

"They’re all complaining that they don’t have any money," former DBB chairman Robert Stein told the Post. "We proposed a way to save a ton of money."

Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work, who originally ordered the study, told the paper that the plan laid out in the report was "unrealistic."

"There is this meme that we’re some bloated, giant organization,” Work said. “Although there is a little bit of truth in that ... I think it vastly overstates what’s really going on."

My experience is that the DOD has a table of allowances regulation which says people in this rank are authorized furniture with these NSNs and people in that rank are authorized furniture with those NSNs. A unit can go for many years without having the furniture that’s authorized by regulation. You submit the paperwork to HHQ so that if there’s any “fallout money,” money from elsewhere in the organization that’s excess to the needs of that section for the fiscal year, you might be able to get a fraction of the amount you requested to buy a desk or two. That’s the view from a worker bee perspective.

I don't think I have seen anyone care about a TA for furniture since they were taken off the CA/CRLs in the late 80s. Now, if you submit for furniture (or nearly anything else) at EOY and you are ready to execute the contract on short notice, there is a good chance you will get it.

If you need a desk or a couple of chairs, you won't get it, but if you put in for $50k in furniture you will, because at EOY they need to get it spent fast, and spending $50k helps them a lot more than $500, and it requires about the same amount of effort.

Dr. Carson had better have some serious forensic accountants on his staff.

The Inspector General for HUD reported that 47% of the HUD budget was UNACCOUNTED for & there were lots of CASH payments.

No receipts. I am not talking about petty cash- I am talking about BILLIONS of missing dollars.

HUD is a disaster & the accountants have to stop the bleeding.

I can from an i/c bkgnd.

Money is wasted well. Many folks who are program managers on the govt side, are not really good program managers. Never really trained to be in the first place and people rotate to other jobs every few years.

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