Profligate Pentagon
Are you a wasteful shopper? You can't be much worse than the military. A recent Government Accountability Office report said the Pentagon threw out $2.2 billion worth of items 'in new, unused and excellent condition' in fiscal years 2002 and 2003. For example, a U.S. Army battalion in Japan turned in 172 new pairs of exteme-weather boots, which were then sold for 40 cents each (actual cost: $23,000). Later, eight other military units bough 214 pairs of the same boots. Tom Schatz, head of the nonpartisan Citizens Against Government Waste,* says the Pentagon has know it has inventory-management problems for decades. 'It buys new property while a similar item is literally left in the rain to rot.' (emphasis mine)
It just burns my butt when I read things like this. I'm struggling to do my education thing, saving dilligently and trying to cut corners to make it happen, and my precious tax dollars are literally rotting. Now, I'm very pro-military because we need a strong defense against all those who cut us down, but this is bleeping ridiculous!!!
* A little coincidence, CAGW's office is a half block away from where I current work.
3 comments:
Two billion is chump change. There is still 8.8 billion UNACCOUNTED dollars spent by the Coalition Provisional Authority, and not one Congressional hearing about it. Guess they are abrogating their fiscal responsibilities the same way they did their reserved power to declare war in the first place. And what money well spent. Those dollars went missing during that all important first year, the one most agree was an example of utter incompetence. What does 8.8 billion lost get you....Medal of
Freedom for attempting to learn Arabic after being appointed the overseer of the occupation of an Arabic speaking country. Here's to "transparency" and "accontability."
Right, and this was cash money, too. Not checks, or figures on a ledger. This was pallets of $100 American greenbacks that just plain went missing. That's just effed up. No other way to describe it.
And to think, if the money wasted in the original post had spent elsewhere...oh say to the VA...they could have funded that administration's needs. Or for that matter, it could have, at least partially, restored cuts made in law enforcement. Why is this administration so willing to deploy troops, but then tries to cut $ to the VA hospitals that serve them when they return? How is it they love to show W in front of the flag at ground zero surrounded by firefighters and cops, then cut their funds? Well so long as those in the the top 2% get their tax cuts, I guess that compensates for short changing the troops and homeland security.
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