this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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A Boring Dystopia
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That 'we don't know where 2 trillion went' is a myth--that number represents accounting reconciliations between their myriad of different archaic and highly secured systems. It doesn't mean that actual resources are missing or can't be accounted for.
I remember reports of literal pallets of cash going missing during desert storm
"missing"
Yeah that money came from Iraqi oil sales. And seems to have likely gone to (mostly) Iraqi contractors and Iraq government. It was literally their money going back to them. The accounting was not well documented. But once again, the money isn’t missing. And it definitely wasn’t money collected by the IRS from taxpayers.
It's an infestation of unconnected dots that could hide countless incidents of corruption. Were we to connect them all and compute the sum of adjustments, the discrepancy could be smaller or greater, exponentially.
The problem is our government favors the DoD like a prodigal son and is not eager to facilitate an audit that might reveal trillions in corruption. It already doesn't like the published records of trullions in bad investments while leaving our troopers with insufficient armor and a DVA that leaves IED victims to the streets and the elements.
So until I see otherwise, I'm going to assume that's trillions going to defense contractor lobbyist junkets and bribes.
That doesn't really matter though. The point still stands regardless of if it's explained by money literally disappearing into a hole or huge rounding errors and inefficiencies in their accounting systems.
They are still allowed much much more leniency with much larger amounts of money (aren't they aren't ever properly held to account for it) than regular people are allowed with comparatively tiny amounts of money.
A big part of it is reporting requirements, despite what some people think different portions of the government have different requirements. The reason a person gets inquiries about Venmo payments is because the IRS requires corporations to report that information to them and it's a mainly automated process.
Regulatory reporting requirements of Corporations to the IRS can't be copy pasted onto Pentagon spending reconciliation.
A better comparison, that is still not accurate, would be a cash business that has to report income to the IRS and has trouble getting granular details organized.
Complaints about transparency and accountability on the Pentagon budget are a valid complaint, but this is a poor example.
Cash business is a great example, considering 99% under-report their income by a huge amount...
as if I know exactly where the fuck all my money went all the time