Ah, the Pentagon. The place where trillions of dollars disappear, and no one bats an eye. Back on September 10, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld stood in front of the press and casually dropped the bombshell that the Pentagon couldn’t account for $2.3 trillion in transactions. Of course, the next day’s tragic events overshadowed this little accounting snafu, and ever since, the whole thing has remained more swept under the rug than actually addressed. But don’t worry—the Department of Defense assures us they’ve been working on it. For decades.
Fast forward to 2017, when the Pentagon finally decided to undergo its first-ever audit. Yes, the world’s largest military, with a budget that puts most countries to shame, didn’t even start auditing itself until then. The result? Failed. Not a single audit has been passed since. So, while we may not know where the $2.3 trillion went, at least we now have evidence of the Pentagon’s financial ineptitude and lack of oversight on paper. Baby steps, right?
The real kicker is that these “lost” trillions aren’t even some secret cache for black ops missions or alien investigations (or are they?). It’s just boring, old bureaucratic incompetence. Years of outdated systems, poor record-keeping, and a labyrinth of military accounting procedures so convoluted even seasoned accountants can’t make heads or tails of it. It makes you wonder—how hard is it to hire someone who knows how to balance a checkbook?
Of course, with such a massive black hole in its finances, you’d think someone would have figured it out by now. But no. Instead, the Pentagon’s solution has been to promise reform while quietly failing audit after audit. Every year, trillions of taxpayer dollars are funneled into the defense budget, and every year, a good chunk of it just seems to vanish into thin air, with no accountability or consequences. At this point, you almost have to admire the consistency.
In the end, whether this is gross incompetence or something more sinister, we may never know. The Pentagon has effectively become a symbol of inefficiency on a colossal scale, and the ongoing inability to track and manage its finances borders on absurd. While the rest of us are busy being lectured about budgeting our finances, the Pentagon continues to bungle trillions of dollars—because, apparently, that’s just how things work when you’re the biggest game in town.
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DOD is out of control. I suspect at least 25% of DOD spending has little to do with wining wars and some may actually hinder the ability to fit and win wars. I suspect 25% may be on the low side. Iam skeptical that most DOD civilians provide little value to warighting.
I’ve long said that we should go back to the WWII model where you had disabled veterans who’d paid their dues in the support-staff roles rather than cake-eating Civil Service REMFs. Gives them the dignity of continuing to serve and help their brothers-at-arms, which should also help with the veteran suicide rate as a Two-Fer bonus.