Government unaccountability and waste: Pentagon edition

[Winehole23]

Because of its persistent inability to tally its accounts, the Pentagon is the only federal agency that has not complied with a law that requires annual audits of all government departments. That means that the $8.5 trillion in taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon since 1996, the first year it was supposed to be audited, has never been accounted for. That sum exceeds the value of China’s economic output last year.


Congress in 2009 passed a law requiring that the Defense Department be audit-ready by 2017. (http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/pdfs/military_act_2009.pdf) Then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in 2011 tightened the screws when he ordered that the department make a key part of its books audit-ready in 2014.

(http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20111013/DEPARTMENTS01/110130302/)

Reuters has found that the Pentagon probably won’t meet its deadlines. The main reason is rooted in the Pentagon’s continuing reliance on a tangle of thousands of disparate, obsolete, largely incompatible accounting and business-management systems. Many of these systems were built in the 1970s and use outmoded computer languages such as COBOL on old mainframes. They use antiquated file systems that make it difficult or impossible to search for data. Much of their data is corrupted and erroneous.


“It’s like if every electrical socket in the Pentagon had a different shape and voltage,” says a former defense official who until recently led efforts to modernize defense accounting

http://www.reuters.com/investigates/pentagon/#article/part2

[Winehole23]

he U.S. Air Force had great expectations for the Expeditionary Combat Support System when it launched the project in 2005. This accountants’ silver bullet, the Air Force predicted a year later, “will fundamentally revolutionize the way the Air Force provides logistics support.”

The new computer-based logistics technology would replace 420 obsolete, inefficient and largely incompatible “legacy” systems with a single, unified means of tracking the hardware of warfare. And it would be done for a mere $1.5 billion, combining three off-the-shelf products from Oracle Corp and modifying them only enough so that they could work together.


Seven years and $1.03 billion taxpayer dollars later, the Air Force announced in November 2012 that it was killing the project. ECSS had yielded “negligible” value and was “no longer a viable option,” the Air Force said. It would have taken an estimated $1.1 billion more to turn it into a system that could perform about one-quarter of its originally planned tasks, and couldn’t be fielded until 2020.


An August 28, 2013, report on the project, (http://www.acq.osd.mil/parca/docs/2013-08-28%20PARCA%20RCA%20ECSS%20FINAL.pdf) commissioned by an undersecretary of defense, filled in more of the blanks. The original promise of ECSS “was an exaggeration not founded on any true analysis,” it said. The plan was “ambiguous”; the Air Force failed to determine what ECSS would replace and what it would need to succeed.


That seven-year exercise in waste was not an anomaly. It was the norm for the U.S. Defense Department’s effort in recent years to upgrade the way it keeps track of money, supplies and people. Burdened with thousands of old, error-filled record-keeping systems - estimates range from 2,100 to more than 5,000 of them - the Pentagon is unable to account for itself, and thus for roughly half of all congressionally approved annual federal spending.

To fix that, the Defense Department has launched 20 or more projects to build modern business-management systems since the late 1990s. At least five were subsequently killed as complete failures after billions of dollars were spent on them. Nine projects now under way or already implemented carry an estimated total cost of $13.9 billion to build and operate, according to the Defense Department comptroller’s office. All of those in use can’t do everything they were supposed to do and are hooked to legacy systems they were supposed to replace.


The Defense Department inspector general said in a 2012 report (http://www.dodig.mil/pubs/documents/DODIG-2013-111.pdf) that just six of these so-called Enterprise Resource Planning projects under way had racked up cost overruns of $8 billion and delays ranging from 1.5 to 12.5 years. With each failure, a pattern emerges: An off-the-shelf product with a proven track record in the private sector is chosen and then modified to the point where it doesn’t work properly.


“On every single one of the ERPs, they go out and customize the shit out of it to make it do what the legacy system did the same way the legacy system did it,” said Mike Young, a former Air Force logistics official and now a consultant on defense logistics and accounting.

[TeyshaBlue]

I see this modify- beyond- operability in contemporary ERP systems. Hell, I make my living untangling these messes in the private sector. There ain't enough money on the planet to get me to even look at the military structures if they were stupid enough to ask.

[Nbadan]

Only One of Six Air Force F-35s Could Actually Take Off During Testing
Source: Fortune


Five of six Air Force F-35 fighter jets were unable to take off during a recent exercise due to software bugs that continue to hamstring the world’s most sophisticated—and most expensive—warplane.

During a mock deployment at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho, just one of the $100 million Lockheed Martin LMT -0.40% F-35s was able to boot its software successfully and get itself airborne during an exercise designed to test the readiness of the F-35, FlightGlobal reports. Nonetheless, the Air Force plans to declare its F-35s combat-ready later this year.

Details surrounding the failed exercise were disclosed earlier this week in written testimony presented to Congress by J. Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon’s chief weapons tester.

“The Air Force attempted two alert launch procedures during the Mountain Home deployment, where multiple F-35A aircraft were preflighted and prepared for a rapid launch, but only one of the six aircraft was able to complete the alert launch sequence and successfully takeoff,” Gilmore wrote. “Problems during startup that required system or aircraft shutdowns and restarts – a symptom of immature systems and software–prevented the other alert launches from being completed.”

<more>

Read more: http://fortune.com/2016/04/28/f-35-fails-testing-air-force/

How much has each plane costs taxpayers already?

[boutons_deux]

Only One of Six Air Force F-35s Could Actually Take Off During Testing
Source: Fortune



Read more: http://fortune.com/2016/04/28/f-35-fails-testing-air-force/

How much has each plane costs taxpayers already?

It doesn't matter. Congress keeps funding crap the military doesn't want because the crap supplies jobs in districts and states. The US defense boondoggle is redistribution of taxpayer wealth to the MIC, esp top mgmt and investors.

[Winehole23]

so totally unaccountable that the US Army just makes shit up --trillions worth -- to balance its books:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-audit-army-idUSKCN10U1IG

[Winehole23]

In 2016, before Trump was elected, its Inspector General said he could not properly track $6.5 trillion (http://www.dodig.mil/reports.html/Article/1119298/army-general-fund-adjustments-not-adequately-documented-or-supported/) in defense spending. A later academic study claimed the number was $21 trillion (https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2017/12/08/has-our-government-spent-21-trillion-of-our-money-without-telling-us/#1401f80d7aef), looking at the years 1998-2015.


Trump originally asked for over $730 billion in defense spending for Fiscal Year 2019, and last spring a budget setting spending at $716 billion (https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/FY19%20NDAA%20Conference%20Summary.pdf) passed 85-10 in the Senate. This would have meant an $82 billion spending hike, an increase that by itself was larger than the entire defense budget of every country on earth (https://www.statista.com/statistics/262742/countries-with-the-highest-military-spending/), save China.


Trump later called for an across-the-board budget cut of 5 percent, leaving the amount of the defense budget in confusion. He still claims he wants $700 billion (https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2018/10/17/trump-appears-to-call-for-defense-spending-cuts/). Whatever the final amount turns out to be, it will be massive — about 10 times the size of Russia’s defense budget, and four times the size of China’s.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-defense-spending-757028/

[Winehole23]

Some other questions to consider: What has been the return on the trillions of dollars we’ve spent (https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2018/Crawford_Costs%20of%20War%20Estimates%20Through%20 FY2019%20.pdf) on wars around the globe since 9/11? Were those 480,000 deaths (https://www.stripes.com/news/us/the-cost-of-post-9-11-wars-hit-5-9-trillion-480-000-lives-lost-study-says-1.556646) worth it? Why are we spending buckets of cash on questionable new weapons systems while leaving the VA system (https://www.forbes.com/sites/charlestiefer/2018/06/08/veterans-sustain-two-serious-defeats-from-trump-and-the-house-to-va-health-care/#7c5739692c5a) in disrepair (https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/09/16/staff-veterans-hospitals-lead-federal-government-criticizing-their-employer-far/gHc8SYqcVze3tk2Xn8YAeI/story.html)?


Instead of any of these more sensible questions, which tend to come from academia or activist groups, the headlines in the larger press tend to focus on Reagan-esque themes of loss and decay.


The Hill’s headline (https://thehill.com/policy/defense/416744-Defense-strategy-report-warns-of-grave-erosion-in-US-military-superiority) about the report: “Defense strategy report warns of grave erosion in U.S. Military Superiority.” The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-military-edge-has-eroded-to-a-dangerous-degree-study-for-congress-finds/2018/11/13/ea83fd96-e7bc-11e8-bd89-eecf3b178206_story.html?utm_term=.19660c7a912e): “U.S. Military has eroded to ‘a dangerous degree,’ study for congress finds.’”


CNN was starker: “Experts warn U.S. at risk of losing war with China or Russia (https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/14/politics/us-defense-strategy-risk/index.html).”


The Pentagon doesn’t just spend money; it spends a lot of money asking for more money. And it has many friends in politics and the media to help them along. Its people may not be great at preparing for the next war, but, they know how to keep their budgets high, and they’re at it again.

[Winehole23]

why is this tolerated?

the Pentagon does bureaucratic waste, fraud and abuse par excellence.


The scale and workings of the Pentagon’s accounting fraud began to be ferreted out (https://missingmoney.solari.com/) last year by a dogged research team led by Mark Skidmore, a professor of economics specializing in state and local government finance at Michigan State University. Skidmore and two graduate students spent months poring over DoD financial statement reviews done by the department’s Office of Inspector General. Digging deep into the OIG’s report on the Army’s 2015 financial statement, the researchers found some peculiar information. Appendix C, page 27, reported that Congress had appropriated $122 billion for the US Army that year. But the appendix also seems to report that the Army had received a cash deposit from the US Treasury of $794.8 billion. That sum was more than six times larger than Congress had appropriated—indeed, it was larger than the entire Pentagon budget for the year. The same appendix showed that the Army had accounts payable (accounting lingo for bills due) totaling $929.3 billion.https://www.thenation.com/article/pentagon-audit-budget-fraud/

[Winehole23]

Recalling his decades inside the Pentagon, Spinney emphasized that the slippery bookkeeping and resulting fraudulent financial statements are not a result of lazy DoD accountants. “You can’t look at this as an aberration,” he said. “It’s business as usual. The goal is to paralyze Congress.”

[Winehole23]

the inspector general’s office has blamed the fake numbers found in many DoD financial statements on the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS), a huge DoD accounting operation based in Indianapolis, Indiana. In review after review, the inspector general’s office has charged that DFAS has been making up “unsupported” figures to plug into DoD’s financial statements, inventing ledger entries to back up those invented numbers, and sometimes even “removing” transaction records that could document such entries.

[Winehole23]

solution: change accounting guidelines to permit falsification


Let that sink in for a moment: As things stand, no one knows for sure how the biggest single-line item in the US federal budget is actually being spent. What’s more, Congress as a whole has shown little interest in investigating this epic scandal. The absurdly huge plugs never even get asked about at Armed Services and Budget Committee hearings.


One interested party has taken action—but it is action that’s likely to perpetuate the fraud. The normally obscure Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board sets the accounting standards for all federal agencies. Earlier this year, the board proposed a new guideline saying that agencies that operate classified programs should be permitted to falsify figures in financial statements and shift the accounting of funds to conceal the agency’s classified operations. (No government agency operates more classified programs than the Department of Defense, which includes the National Security Agency.) The new guideline became effective on October 4, just in time for this year’s end-of-year financial statements.

[boutons_deux]

solution: change accounting guidelines to permit falsification

:lol

[Spurtacular]

Boutonshole vs. Winehole

Have fun.

[boutons_deux]

why is this tolerated?
the Pentagon does bureaucratic waste, fraud and abuse par excellence.


it's not tolerated, but the intolerants, like all citizens, are powerless to stop it.

Much of $700B+ / year is pocketed by the oligarchy (and their investors) in high-margin contracts.

The oligarchy's legislative whores approve the untouchable military budget and make sure some of that budget goes into their districts and states.

The Generals/Admirals who approve the contracts retire on exorbitant pensions to take $100Ks jobs with MIC corps

The USA "can't" win anymore,

because the never-ending GWOT is, above all, a hugely profitable business.

Military spends $100Ms every year on marketing (not recruiting), influencing films, TV, etc to maintain the military's bogus but impenetrable aura of irreproachability, invincibility, honor, etc.

Fucking military pervades, perversely out of all healthy proportion, America with, eg, honor guards at every fucking event, singing the national anthem by "look-at-me" celebs.

[boutons_deux]

Pensions continue to grow for military brass

In 2007, Congress passed a Pentagon-sponsored proposal that boosted retirement benefits for three- and four-star admirals and generals,

allowing them to make more in retirement than they did on active duty.

That means a four-star officer retiring with 40 years of experience would receive a pension of $237,144,

after 20 years of service, regardless of age, a military retiree qualifies for a pension amounting to 50% of final pay with an additional 2.5 percentage points for each year of service beyond 20.

But the deal does not affect the 2007 enhancement for top pension, which has allowed pension rates for those officers to spike.

Figures for 2011 show that a four-star officer retiring with 38 years' experience received a

yearly pension of about $219,600, a jump of $84,000, or 63% beyond what was previously allowed.

A three-star officer with 35 years' experience would get about $169,200 a year, up about $39,000, or 30%.

Before the law was changed, the typical pension for a retired four-star officer was $134,400.

Since 2011, however, Pentagon officials have acknowledged that the military is top heavy with brass and senior officials.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/01/07/military-pensions-four-star-officers/4359023/

[Winehole23]

waste, fraud, accounting shenanigans, retaliation against whitleblowers:

https://degraw.media/10-mind-blowing-pentagon-audit-reports-all-americans-need-to-know/

[Winehole23]

If there's a bigger dark hole into which taxpayer money disappears unaccountably, post it here.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/pentagon-budget-mystery-807276/

[Winehole23]

In a supreme irony, the auditors’ search for boondoggles has itself become a boondoggle. In the early Nineties and 2000s, the Defense Department spent billions hiring private firms in preparation for last year. In many cases, those new outside accountants simply repeated recommendations that had already been raised and ignored by past government auditors like the Defense inspector general.

[boutons_deux]

With a straight face ... :lol

Why America Needs a Stronger Defense Industry

Investing in the sector means more jobs at home and improved security abroad.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/opinion/trump-defense-industry.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[Winehole23]

In late May 2018, Skidmore's graduate student at Michigan State University found the most recent report for the DODon the OIG website, It summarizes unsupported adjustments for fiscal year 2017. However, this document differs from all previous reports in that all the numbers relating to the unsupported adjustments were redacted. That is, all the relevant information was blacked out. The report can be accessed here (https://home.solari.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Financial-Statement-Compilation-of-Adjustments-and-Information-Technolog....pdf). We believe the redactions are the direct results of our exposing this issue. That exposure was significant. Our prior column (https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2017/12/08/has-our-government-spent-21-trillion-of-our-money-without-telling-us/#27ea228c7aef)went viral with over 129,000 views.


Despite OIG reports showing trillions of undocumented adjustments, Congress continues to appropriate funds without requiring meaningful improvements in transparency and accountability. The Washington Post's motto is Democracy Dies in Darkness. It sure does. It is time for Congress and their audit arm, the General Accountability Office (GAO), to turn on the lights -- to investigate and explain to the American public these massive undocumented adjustments that may be signaling government malfeasance and legal violations on a massive scale. Unlike some countries' founding documents, our Constitution does not countenance losing money, hiding money or stealing money. Indeed, misuse of assets is an impeachable offense.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2018/07/21/is-our-government-intentionally-hiding-21-trillion-in-spending/

[Winehole23]

More failed vision and execution, another multi-billion dollar boondoggle.

https://twitter.com/propublica/status/1700343379739955610?s=20

1700343379739955610

[Winehole23]

Concern trolling about waste, fraud and runaway government spending dissipates substantially when the bureaucracy in the crosshairs is the Pentagon.


The Pentagon failed an independent audit of its accounting systems for the sixth consecutive year, a Pentagon official said Wednesday.https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pentagon-fails-audit-sixth-year-row-2023-11-16/

[Winehole23]

About half of the Pentagon's $3.8t in assets were completely unaccounted for in this last audit