Pentagon Fails Another Audit, Congress Should Investigate If Our Tax Dollars Are Being Spent As Intended

There’s a lot of rhetoric in Congress, especially by Republicans, on accountability and spending of U.S. tax dollars. Yet, for a sixth consecutive year in a row, the Pentagon just failed another audit and there’s zero uproar over it by legislators at the Hill.

In fact, since the Pentagon started doing an audit in 2018, it has never successfully completed one.

This should be even more disturbing since the Pentagon (defense spending) accounts for about half the money of Congress approves each year.

Every other federal agency has passed an audit so at least taxpayers know that the money budgeted for that agency is spent as it is meant to be. But with the Pentagon failing yet again, taxpayers just don’t know where the money is going to at the Pentagon.

In the latest audit, the Pentagon was able to account for just half of its $3.8 trillion in assets. That means $1.9 trillion is unaccounted for. That’s an incredibly large sum unaccounted for. There were 700 site visits by 1,600 auditors. Of 29 components (areas), only seven passed inspection with a “clean” audit. This year’s audit nearly mirrored the results of last year in which only seven areas passed with a clean audit.

What’s even more disturbing is that the Pentagon has been stonewalling the need to even be audited before it was required by law since 2018. And the Pentagon had seven years ahead of time before 2018 to clean up their books and get ready for annual auditing. Still, again, it has failed to clear a single audit.

The annual audit is conducted by independent public accounting firms and the DOD Office of the Inspector General.

This failure by the Pentagon in accounting should be met with a Congressional investigation. After all, Congress allocates money each year by billions of dollars and each year the Pentagon fails to explain where and why billions of dollars remain unaccounted for. This is absurd and no other agency would be able to get away with it as the Pentagon is.

If billions of dollars are unaccounted for how Americans are to know if money allocated to the Pentagon is spent as intended. There could be corruption. Who knows. No one knows. Half of the Pentagon budget goes to corporate weapons contractors. Do we even know that these contractors are producing the correct number of weapons the Pentagon is paying for. We don’t know because the $1.9 trillion that’s unaccounted for includes military equipment.

Recent funding
Last year the Congress authorized $768 billion for the Pentagon and defense programs for 2023, which is a 5% increase in military expenditures. It’s expected that Congress will meet this December to approve another $840 billion for next year which is yet another increase in military spending.

The Senate already approved its version of the annual military defense bill with bipartisan support in July in an 86-11 vote, granting authorization for $886 billion over the next year.

So that will be two years of increased military spending. All the while over a trillion of dollars remain unaccounted for. How do we even know that more in military spending is needed? But we keep increasing the Pentagon’s budget. There are so many unanswered questions when the Pentagon is failing all its annual audits.

Why shouldn’t we have a funding freeze until the missing money is found. In a situation where another federal agency couldn’t account for money far less than what the Pentagon is missing, you can bet that top managers would be fired, and some members of Congress would be demanding defunding that agency.

Frankly, Americans are tired of the double standard enjoyed by the Pentagon. Americans are tired of the lack of transparency of the Pentagon. And polls show Americans think too much money is allocated each year to the Pentagon. More than half of Americans think we are spending too much on the war in Ukraine. The U.S. has given billions in military equipment and money for them to buy billions more in weapons from American weapons manufacturers. Do we even know that this kind of circular spending is even done properly and honestly?

A recent poll shows the Pentagon is fifth as a priority in how government should be spending taxpayers’ money, behind healthcare, border security, education and infrastructure.

Congress should stop the kids glove handling of the Pentagon and be demanding more accountability. After all, we are talking billions upon billions unaccounted for.