It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Originally posted by hooper
reply to post by wcitizen
Other important questions are where did the money come from.....and what was it for?
Really? Those are your questions? Where does the funding for the US Defense come from? Ever hear of taxes? What was it for? Defense spending. Military is expensive and a lot of it is secret for good reason. Even simple stuff like the budget for food for submarines. Has to stay "secret" in that specific expenditures for specific patrols are not accounted separately for fear that it migh reveal duration and therefore the intended patrol limits and mission.
Originally posted by thedman
reply to post by wcitizen
The Pentagon had some 40 different accounting systems, each with different data formats which made it
impossible to consolidate all the expeditures into one consolidated ledger
Its lioke this = last week had a $100, this week dont. Now I know I bought gas, went shopping at supermarket
and ate lunch at McDonalds. Now am trying remeber what date did what and how much was spent
The $100 is not missing, but was spent. Only have trouble documenting expenidutes
Trillions of dollars are not small change, even for the Pentagon, so I find the 'accounting error' theory very implausible, personally.
The money has disappeared and....
Originally posted by samkent
reply to post by wcitizen
Trillions of dollars are not small change, even for the Pentagon, so I find the 'accounting error' theory very implausible, personally.
Do a web search for the Pentagon budget history.
They would have to steal the ENTIRE budget for the years 1994 through 2000 and then some. That's 7 years of money. What did they use to pay the troops?
Does it seem even remotely possible to do that?
If it is true that this money is unaccounted for as reported, it means it must have been money outside of the budget....hence my questions where did it come from, what was it for, and, of course, where has it gone.
Originally posted by samkent
reply to post by wcitizen
If it is true that this money is unaccounted for as reported, it means it must have been money outside of the budget....hence my questions where did it come from, what was it for, and, of course, where has it gone.
You can't have 7 years of the entire budget as 'outside' the budget. You are talking about one third the entire government budget for 7 years.
Originally posted by Maxmars
reply to post by wcitizen
I find myself wondering if certain DoD financial activities are not "line-item classified" which is to say that a review of the budget will not show what certain expenditures were used for, only that they were used. Ultimately, any audit would be left with mountains of questions since 'black budget' items are a 'blank check' which political appointees can use to funnel wherever they wish, citing 'national security' as there protection from accountability.
I used to think that must be why all the diverse and disconnected budgetary and accounting systems are in place... but frankly, that would be just too easy to abuse and I can't see any inspector general simply shrugging it off as "the way we do business."