With that said, I am NOT against eliminating, waste fraud and abuse. And I think a lot can be done to make the military accountable for the money spent.
But .. . add up the dollars that has funded the military. Do you know that almost 80% of the money goes to salaries .. ..the active and reserve military, plus the Dept. of Defense Civil Servants, plus the “operating costs” of operating the military. That’s beans, bullets and fuel. That means 80% of our military budget is spent on personnel. And if you think these guys are over-paid … you’re just plain SICK. Try to work the long hours these people do, and for a side-benefit, the chance to get killed in the line of duty, plus long hours/days/months separate from the family on deployment, overseas, etc.
The remaining 20% … that pays for ships, planes, tanks, ordnance (bombs, missiles, things that go bang in the night.) (And of that 20%, maybe 20% of that goes for R&D to come up with new weapons/ships/warfighting technology - about 4% of the total defense budget.) Stroll down to the waterfront near a Navy Station. Here at Bremerton, WA, I can go near the Bangor Sub Base and see 3 or 4 of the 8 Tridents stationed there. That’s about $3 Billion per ship, plus another $2 Billion per ship worth of missiles and nuclear war heads. Go to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard …. The USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) just got back, plus the Sacramento, plus other ships there. Another 20 – 30 Billion perhaps. And for you auditing bean counters, I would like to point out that the mothball fleet down the way just a bit, with 2 Carriers, several Military Sea Lift Ships, Fast Frigates, etc., all assets that are still carried on the books, worth BILLIONS. And when ordnance is retired ... how well are the books adjusted when old torpedoes are scrapped. (2000 old torpedoes that cost $200K each, after scrapping ... $400 Million of inventory - needs to be accounted for in the books, but often isn't properly accounted for. And look at all the old hardware that was legitimately purchased, then later on retired/scrapped.)
Thing is. .. the ACCOUNTING SYSTEM, AND THE ACCOUNTING REQUIREMENTS SUCK. You can see the products that the remaining 20% have bought. And look on the news at night …. The victory in Afghanistan was using the military weapon systems that the money purchased. I think that better accounting would be nice, but for anyone to suggest that there are trillions of dollars stolen or wasted is just plain dumb wrong!!!!!!
There is fraud in the system, but a lot of the fraud is the sort of stuff that Congress or a corrupt administration (like Slick Willie) MANDATES on the Military. The military sometimes tries to do things more cost effective, but then they run afoul of various Congressional mandates. The military is occasionally directed to purchase weapon systems different than what they want (or need.) The military is often forced to deal with incompetent vendors because of “Small Business Set-Asides” mandated by Congress.
Years ago, the Dept. of Defense had a program that encouraged finding ways to save money. Many useful things were happening .. .. At Edwards AFB in So. Calif., someone noticed that they re-striped the runway every 6 months, but the CA Highway Dept. only did it every two years .. so they researched, and changed paints and processes, resulting in significant savings. Other examples abounded …. But Congress found out, and put one of those little line items in the budget, “No appropriated funds may be used for such and such program…” resulting in the closing of that program. Seems that too much independent thinking might result in the inability of corrupt politicians to steer money away from the competent contractor to the incompetent contractor.
BUT LET US TAKE A DIFFERENT TACK. You have to admit that most of the money ever spent by the Dept. of Defense can be accounted for when you acknowledge salaries, fuel, etc. operating costs. You can account for the majority of the big ticket expenses by counting tanks, ships and planes. The problem might come in when you try to account for 50 years of out-dated hardware still on the books, some in mothballs, some lost, etc. But all in all, the military has done a good job with what it has, and we are all seeing the results now.]
NOW … lets look at the Dept. of Education. The department can’t account for billions of dollars spent in the last few years. Money disappeared into black holes. 25% to 35% per year of the budget can’t be accounted for. And for the money that can be accounted for …. .look at the wonderful results. Look at how much better educated our children are. How many people can truly claim to see ANY benefit for even a single dollar spent by the Dept. of Education.
And in comparison, the Defense Dept. problems are probably much less than 5% of its total budget … and before everyone claims that the Defense Dept. needs to change, lets remember that first the Congress must change the way it MANDATES the Dept. of Defense do business. Then there might be some REAL savings, some real efficiencies ….but until then, don’t blame the Military.
This is a real Hot-Button Issue with ME, in case you haven’t figured that out yet. Our military is for the most part, great, and for the most part, everyone wants to give an honest effort, and an honest value for the tax-payer dollars. Sure, there are anecdotal incidents of fraud and corruption, but it is not a big part of the military, unlike the “social programs” in the U.S. Government.
Mike, USNR, former submariner, and drilling reservist.
A big hoo-rah for your post.
I was all prepared to express my outrage over the government not keeping better tabs on my tax dollars, until I came to your post. What I derived from your post is that, while there may be some small percentage of fraud, most of the problem comes down to inaccurate bookkeeping. While corporations always seem to know the exact bottom line for depreciating their assets, and for keeping records of assets that are depleted, our military has problems in doing the same. (I have to wonder if each and every bomb recently dropped in Afghanistan has been recorded somewhere on some base's books.)
Because of its vast size, no one ever bothered in the past to hold the Department of Defense accountable for the expenditures of each and every minute base, plus accounting procedures varied.
As the mother of a son who recently joined the navy, I appreciate your defense of the military all the more.
Once I tried to track the Federal Government's budget for environmental spending, and it was impossible. The tenticles are far-reaching ,aking an accounting virtually impossible.