Posted on 03/05/2025 5:24:20 PM PST by Twotone
The Pentagon’s books are a mess, and D.O.G.E just ripped the lid off one of the biggest financial disasters in government history. The Department of Defense (DoD) lost track of $824 billion last year, and their latest audit only confirms what most already suspected—no one knows where the money went.
This isn’t a small accounting error. The DoD’s $4.1 trillion in assets and $4.3 trillion in liabilities were put under scrutiny, and the results are just embarrassing.
Out of all the entities inside the Pentagon, only nine managed to pass their audits. One got a “qualified” rating, meaning the books weren’t great but not a total disaster. The remaining fifteen failed completely.
Their financials were such a mess that auditors couldn’t even determine whether they were right or wrong. Three major Pentagon branches—the Marine Corps, the Defense Logistics Agency’s National Defense Stockpile Transaction Fund, and the DoD Office of Inspector General—haven’t even submitted their audits yet. Pentagon spending raises questions
Sean Parnell, assistant to the secretary of Defense for public affairs, pointed to wasteful contracts in a video posted Monday night. According to him, the Department of Government Efficiency (led by Musk) has identified $80 million in potential savings, though this barely makes a dent in the Pentagon’s $850 billion budget.
Parnell called out $13 million in projects that had little to do with military operations. This included:
$1.9 million for the Air Force’s “holistic DEI transformation and training” $6 million to the University of Montana to “strengthen American democracy by bridging divides” $3.5 million for “support to DEI groups” from the Defense Human Resources Activity $1.6 million to the University of Florida to study “social and institutional detriments of vulnerability and resilience to climate hazards in African Sahel”
“This stuff is just not a core function of our military,” Parnell said, calling these expenses “a distraction.”
Parnell claimed this is just the start. He said the DoD will keep cutting unnecessary spending and focusing on making the military more effective. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has already outlined plans to reduce military spending by 8% over the next five years. Musk’s D.O.G.E charges agencies for its work
While Musk’s D.O.G.E is supposed to make the government more efficient, the group isn’t exactly doing it for free. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has been asked to pay over $4 million for work being done by the department between January 20 and July 4, 2026. A draft agreement obtained by CNN shows that OPM is required to fund 20 full-time positions at the highest federal pay scale.
According to the agreement, D.O.G.E would modernize OPM’s IT systems. The agency’s internal systems are outdated and incapable of handling current government operations. The agreement also requires OPM to give D.O.G.E full access to its data and systems.
Musk’s team insists this is about making the government run better and saving taxpayer money, but critics argue it’s just another way to fire federal workers and access sensitive government data. No one knows if other agencies have been asked to pay for D.O.G.E’s work.
The group operates in secrecy. It is housed inside the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), making it exempt from federal public records laws. The White House has also stated Musk is not the administrator of D.O.G.E, only an adviser to Trump, which gives him executive privilege protections. Where is the money coming from?
The biggest question is how D.O.G.E is being funded. Previously, the agency was known as the United States Digital Services, but Trump renamed it on his first day in office through an executive order. Since then, it’s been a mystery where the money is coming from and how much the entire operation is costing taxpayers.
Musk has repeatedly said he’s a volunteer, and his staff’s pay structure remains unclear. “Some people are federal employees,” Musk told Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
“But it’s fair to say that the software engineers at D.O.G.E could be earning millions of dollars a year, and instead are earning a small fraction of that as federal employees.”
The draft agreement states that full-time employees would be paid at the highest level of 15 possible grades in the federal pay system.
This translates to $141,817 annually at the base rate, but salaries increase based on location. In Washington, D.C., the number jumps to $189,950. Over a 17.5-month period, 20 full-time salaries would cost at least $4.1 million.
A government employee at OPM told CNN, “Some people think they are working for free. No, we are paying. It’s like having a contract with an entity to perform services, except this is forced on us so we are forced to do an agreement to retain their services.”
Actually, I think the biggest question is "What happened to the $800B?"
I think having on your resume that you saved the United States Federal Government from complete insolvency is worth making a lot less for a few years :)
They won’t be interviewing for programming positions but for CTO of already poweful companies.
Good for them
Thank you greatly appreciate your post
“The biggest question is how D.O.G.E is being funded. Previously, the agency was known as the United States Digital Services, but Trump renamed it on his first day in office through an executive order. Since then, it’s been a mystery where the money is coming from and how much the entire operation is costing taxpayers”
DOGE has literally saved over $150 billion in six weeks, and they’re concerned how much a team of a hundred twenty year olds is costing?
Actually I thank you greatly appreciate your post
& comments by ClearCase_guy & dp0622 LOL
“...and they’re concerned how much a team of a hundred twenty year olds is costing?”
Based upon 20-year-old computer nerds that I know, they’d do this work for free Pizza and unlimited cases of Mountain Dew. ;)
“Actually, I think the biggest question is “What happened to the $800B?””
I agree. At least we are not finding out some of this. The IG’s could not seem to get to first base with the Pentagon.
Another smear job pretending to be “news”
Apparently the cuck writing this does not speak English as a 1st language. The body of the article is totally devoid of any credible information that matches the headline. Instead it is a thinly veiled smear job pushing rumor and innuendo against DOGE
That person questioning DOGE funding is kidding, right. USDS had money, didn’t it?
Should read: “At least we are finding out about some of this. The IG’s could not seem to get to first base with the Pentagon.”
DOGE INFO
1. DOGE Live Tracker
Following the money:
https://dogegov.com/dogeclock
.
.
2. Estimated Savings
$105B- Combination of asset sales, contract/lease cancellations and re-negotiations, fraud and improper payment deletion, grant cancellations, interest savings, programmatic changes, regulatory savings, and workforce reductions.
Amount Saved Per Taxpayer
$652.17- Per taxpayer amount is calculated using an estimate of 161 million individual federal taxpayers.
https://doge.gov/savings
.
.
3. Agency Efficiency Leaderboard - Most/Least Savings
[Tracking progress across federal agencies]
We are working to upload all of our receipts in a digestible and transparent manner consistent with applicable rules and regulations. To get started, listed below are a subset of contract, grant, and lease cancellations, representing ~30% of total savings.
The contracts listed below (URL) have been posted publicly on fpds.gov. FPDS posting of the contract termination notices can have up to a 1 month lag. There may be discrepancies between FPDS and the posted numbers, the latter of which originate directly from agency contracting officials.
Last updated March 5th, 2025. This will initially be updated weekly; over time, the website will improve and the updates will converge to real-time.
Even $10 billion would build a few prisons...for lifers. Start with Milley.
“The biggest question is how D.O.G.E is being funded.”
Um..no. The biggest issue is that the unelected bureaucracy is fifty times too big, and that means literally trillions of dollars are being misappropriated each year. Trillions.
Let’s see. DOGE identifies over 800 billion unaccounted for at DOD & this article b!+ches about paying big balls & the boys 4 million???
They are GS-15s. Easy to look up and see what they are making.
840 billion was the 2024 budget request for the whole DoD.
“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has already outlined plans to reduce military spending by 8% over the next five years”
With all do respect Pete. In light of this scandless report 8% is a pretty low bar. And you may well not be around in 5 years. Do better.
Exactly!
A decent chunk of this money is going to be equipment that was purchased and later installed on end items but the end item value was never adjusted to reflect the added value of the subassembly(s). This is a problem especially with DoD audits. While to an auditor it looks like the asset disappeared, these expensive subassemblies are still in DOD ownership but not being counted correctly as increase in value of a higher assembly.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.