Why Is the Most Wasteful Government Agency Exempt from Criticism?

David Morris Why is it that the one federal agency that epitomizes everything conservatives say they hate about government--- wasteful, incompetent, corruptis the one part of government exempt from conservative criticism? Im talking, of course, about the Pentagon. It takes an act of incredible manipulation not to recognize it in a deficit reduction exercise, since military spending accounts for more than 60 percent of all discretionary spending. Your federal income tax check, in large part, ends up at Pentagon. About three quarters of federal R&D expenditures are for military technologies. Railing against public pensions, but there is one group of public employees that have been excempt from ceriticsm, and of course, they are the ones that receive the most generous of all public pensions. Incompetence is the Pentagons middle name. In 2009 the Government Accountability Office (GAO) announced staggering cost overruns in nearly 70 percent of the Pentagons 96 major weapons of almost $300 billion. And thats just the part that we know about. The most damning bit of evidence about military spending is that we dont even know how much it spends and on what. In 1994, the Government Management Reform Act required the Inspector General of each federal agency to audit and publish the financial statements of their agency. In fiscal 1998 the Department of Defense used $1.7 trillion of undocumentable adjustments to balance the books. In 1999 that increased to $2.3 trillion. In 2000 the total was $1.1 trillion. Congress response? It allowed the DOD to opt out of its previously legally required audits while requiring it to set a date when it could be audited. The latest target date is 2017 before they will have even a simple audit and DOD has already announced they will be unable to meet that deadline. Which means DODs financial statements have not been audited for almost 10 years. Adding insult to injury, last September, the GAO concluded that the new computer systems intended to improve the Pentagons financial oversight are themselves nearly 100 percent or $7 billion over budget and as much as 12 years behind schedule. There have been some audits of small parts of DODs books. The results? The Defense Logistics Agency had no use for parts worth more than half of the $13.7 billion in equipment stacked up in DOD warehouses in 2006 to 2008. Some $18 billion obligated over 3 years to 7,000 contractors in Afghanistan is unaccounted for. In 2009 the Pentagons Defense Contract Audit Agency(DCAA), the federal watchdog responsible for auditing oversight of military contractors, raised the question of criminal wrongdoing when it found that audits that did occur were riddled with serious breaches of auditor independence. One Pentagon auditor admitted he did not perform detailed tests

because, The contractor would not appreciate it. Why would the Pentagon allow its contractors to get away with fraud? To begin to understand the answer we need to understand the incestuous relationship between the Pentagon and its contractors. From 2004 to 2008, 80 percent of retiring three and four star officers went to work as consultants or defense executives. Generals are recruited for private sector jobs well before they retire. Once employed by the military contractor the general maintains a Pentagon advisory role. After an in-depth investigation, the Boston Globe recently observed, In almost any other realm it would seem a clear conflict of interest. But this is the Pentagon wheresuch apparent conflicts are a routine fact of life. NYT august 2010, headline Pentago Plans Steps to Reduce Budgets and Jobs. Earlier that year it had the New York Times reported, The decision to go after the pentagon budget..is the clearest indication yet that President Obama will be cutting spending broadly across the government as he seeks to reduce the deficit. This plan, represents, in may view, the minimum level of defense spending that is necessary I think that at least with respoect to the Pentagon, Ronadl Reagans admonition is correct, the government is the problem, not the solution. Yet we have difficulty tackling that problem. The difference between the President and Republican leadership is between someone who wants to make at most cosmetic cuts to the military budget and those who want, if anything, to increase it. You wouldnt know this from the headlines. The New York Times Obama wants to slow the rate of growth. House of Representatives Missouri republican todd akin, chair of house armed services seapower and expenditures forces subcommittee announced, I find it stunning that the Obama administration thinks of cutting almost $80 billion from our defense budget while we are at war... Buck McKeon, chairman of house armed services committee, Im not happy. We went into todays meeting trying to ensure the $100 billion in targeted savings were reinvested back into our national security priorities. $100 billion sounds like a lot of money, but it would result in an increase in military spending of upwards of $500 billion.
Perhaps if we began to look at its budget with a real scalpel we would address its mission. We spend 2-3 percent more than Germany or China of our economy. And that is money that crowds out other investment, creates the fewest number of jobs, and many of those are abroad, and products that are not consumable in the domestic economy. NFL and 175 countries. Why? We spend 40% of the worlds spending on military. We have troops in over 160 of the worlds 195 countries. Talk about trying to compete with one hand tied behind our back. Some argue that defense spending makes us more secure. Hard to believe. As Gordon Adma,s national security adviser to Clinton has noted, Excessive defense spending can make us less

secure, not more. Countries feel threatened when rivals ramp up their defenses; this was

true in the Cold War, and now it may happen with China. It's how arms races are born. We spend more, inspiring competitors to do the same -- thus inflating defense budgets without making anyone safer. For example, Gates observed in May that no other country has a single ship comparable to our 11 aircraft carriers. Based on the perceived threat that this fleet poses, the Chinese are pursuing an anti-ship ballistic missile program. U.S. military officials have decried this ``carrier-killer'' effort, and in response we are diversifying our capabilities to strike China, including a new long-range bomber program, and modernizing our carrier fleet at a cost of about $10 billion per ship. Our military adventures in the middle east and Fghanistan and Pakistan, $2 trillion and counting so far, have not made us friends, multiplied our enemies.
But terrorism is more insidious you say. Some 600 al queda in Afghanistan. A trillion dollars and counting. Some argue that Russian bled itself to death in Afghanisan.

Adam Smith said, Were the expense of war to be defrayed always by revenue raised within the yearwars would in general be more speedily concluded and less wantonly undertaken. Repubicans have said that military spending does not have to be offset by reduced spending somewhere else, unlike any other kind of government spending. It is the only activity of government that they do not believe has to be paid for. Analysis in 2007 found that $1 billion spent on militarys pending creates 8533 jobs and $564 millioni total wages and beneficts from empmllyhment while spending the same on education would create more than twice the number of jobs and wages and benefits. Indeed, the only place which created less economic value was tax cuts for personal consumption, of course, the highest priority, salivating at this as we refrain from cutting the military, to crate jobs. Can you imagine a local school district telling us it cant track the number of pencils it purchased last year? Outrage. Off with their desk tops. But the military is impervious to change. Representative, one conservative Republican did come up with a good idea. Freeze the dod budget until such time as it .