Black Budget Blows By $50 Billion Mark

In the R-1 (research and development), P-1 (procurement) and O-1 (operations) budgets for 2010, just over $50 billion is listed for classified programs, the largest-ever sum. The Pentagon's "black" operations, including the intelligence budgets nested inside it, are roughly equal in magnitude to the entire defense budgets of the UK, France or Japan, and 10 per cent of the total.

Highlights include the US Air Force's classified research and development budget. Earlier estimates suggested that secret projects accounted for 36 per cent of USAF R&D spending, but the FY2010 budget shows that even this startling number is on the low side. The USAF plans to spend almost $12 billion on secret programs in 2010 - more than three Joint Strike Fighter development efforts - or just about 43 per cent of its R&D.

Black-world procurement remains dominated by the single line item that used to be called "Selected Activities", resident in the USAF's "other procurement" section. This year's number stands just above $16 billion. In inflation-adjusted terms, that's 240 per cent more than it was ten years ago.

On the operations side, secret spending has risen 8 per cent over last year, to just over $15 billion - equivalent to more than a third of Air Force operating costs.

Bill Sweetman.

Ares.

Truely absurd. I don't know what else to say.

[edit on 8/5/2009 by C0bzz]

That doesn't include what monies they generate from drug sales and other ulterior methods which comprises the truly black budget. Must be nice working for a place that can strong-arm a government for whatever budget they want. And they were to say no, you could "eliminate" uncooperative opponents." But I think congress is briefed with a bit better details- the House probably way less than the Senate.


Wouldn't it be a nicer world if all the government spy and black op agencies decided to be friends and stop undermining each other. My guess would be one of them flinched and they all ran back to their underground bases.

reply to post by Moonsouljah


Exactly the drug trade brings in so much money, just who gets it all, and what do they sopend it all on. If it is research and such, what research as things seem to move so slowly in the world we live in.

Originally posted by andy1033
reply to post by Moonsouljah

 

Exactly the drug trade brings in so much money, just who gets it all, and what do they sopend it all on. If it is research and such, what research as things seem to move so slowly in the world we live in.

Robotics - trust me - it is going in to developing AI.
They are looking to develop fully autonomous bots which will have swarm capacity to take on the entire battle theatre compltely without humans "in the loop".

By 2020 the battle soldier, the grunt, will be replaced by robots.

The start of the Iraq war there were around 5 robots in the field, currently there are 20,000 this figure is set to go up to 150,000 by 2012......now you know.

"Wired for War" Peter Singer - read this book to know more.....

reply to post by audas


Yep we know that japan where leaders in it, but there are stories about usa as well. There are bound to be so many things being done, and we will never know as its hidden outside any government or oversite.

One thing we can all agree is they must be alot further ahead than any of us can even imagine, i would guess.

There is that saying "anything you can imgaine has already been invented somehwere in this world". Would anyone disagree with that. I wouldn't.

reply to post by C0bzz


Are you kidding me? Just a few years ago the federal gov't admitted they have no idea where $1 trillion a year from the military budget is going. $50 billion is just a drop in a bucket compared to $1 trillion.

In my opinion. most of it is going to the REAL space program -- military.

reply to post by guppy


1 trillion is bigger than the entire 'defence' budget, thus that statement is untrue. The money, I believe it was 2.3 trillion dollars was unaccounted for over many years, much of that could of been funnelled into black projects, yes, but it is still different than the already absurd figure of the equivalent of three JSF programmes. Either way, there is too much money spent on black projects and too much money unaccounted for.


EDIT: OMFG 11111 ATS POINT!!!11111

[edit on 8/5/2009 by C0bzz]

Originally posted by C0bzz
reply to post by guppy

 

1 trillion is bigger than the entire 'defence' budget, thus that statement is untrue. The money, I believe it was 2.3 trillion dollars was unaccounted for over many years, which is far different than money spent on black R&D. Either way, there is too much money spent on black projects and too much money unaccounted for.

Uh, september 10th 2001, Rumsfeld came out and anounced that they couldn't account for 2.3 trillion for fiscal year 1999. For fiscal year 1998, they could not account for 1.7 trillion. And for fiscal year 2000, they reported a 1.1 trillion dollar loss. 1

Keep in mind this announcement was made on September 10th, 2001. Luckily though, a "757" slammed into the accounting department the very next day.

Thank god for astronomical coincidences.

Source
The Inspector General reports are important evidence that trillions of dollars were siphoned through the Department of Defense (DoD) for the fiscal years 1998-2002. [89] Using the Inspector General reports of accounting anomalies, it can be estimated that Fitts and O’Meara’s estimates of missing money from the DoD is a close approximation to the CIA’s ‘unofficial’ black budget. Consequently, the CIA black budget is annually in the vicinity of 1.1 trillion dollars – a truly staggering figure when one considers that the DoD budget for 2004 will be approximately 380 billion dollars. [90] This suggests that the vast size of the DoD in terms of its personnel, weapons systems and research into ‘conventional weapons systems’, is dwarfed by something that in funding terms is almost three times larger than the entire conventional military system funded by the DoD budget.

Congrats on the 11111 points mark.

I think you're all making good points.
As for the whole now cult-status Rumsfeld 9/10 trillions remark, I'm curious do they just run up a tab? How is it they spend that much without Congress allocating it?
As an ignorant Big-Government Democrat I guess I don't really care. Joking- I'm a big-defense Republican so either way I don't care and the Pentagon moves along unscrutinized.

50billion is a drop in the bucket though. that's like the price of a DC enema.

I don't get it- these politicians must be buying snacks during their campaign seasons back home, then they get to DC and seem to forget what the real value of things are. A billion here a trillion there- it's all the same I guess.

Uh, september 10th 2001, Rumsfeld came out and anounced that they couldn't account for 2.3 trillion for fiscal year 1999. For fiscal year 1998, they could not account for 1.7 trillion. And for fiscal year 2000, they reported a 1.1 trillion dollar loss. 1

I know, I read the speech .

www.defenselink.mil...

I would recommend you to read the source behind them documents because the DoD clearly do not loose trillions a year but rather have trillions of dollars worth of unsupported accounting entries, which are two different things.

www.scoop.co.nz...

For example, assets should equal equity (ownership, essentially) - if they are imbalanced by 100 million dollars at the end of 2050, then assuming the mistake is not corrected and no further mistakes are made, then the imbalance of 100 million dollars will remain at the end of 2051. But that doesn't mean 100 million was lost each year, it means 100 million, total, has disappeared.


[edit on 8/5/2009 by C0bzz]

Originally posted by C0bzz

Uh, september 10th 2001, Rumsfeld came out and anounced that they couldn't account for 2.3 trillion for fiscal year 1999. For fiscal year 1998, they could not account for 1.7 trillion. And for fiscal year 2000, they reported a 1.1 trillion dollar loss. 1

I know, I read the speech .

www.defenselink.mil...

I would recommend you to read the source behind them documents because the DoD clearly do not loose trillions a year but rather have trillions of dollars worth of unsupported accounting entries, which are two different things.

www.scoop.co.nz...

For example, assets should equal equity (ownership, essentially) - if they are imbalanced by 100 million dollars at the end of 2050, then assuming the mistake is not corrected and no further mistakes are made, then the imbalance of 100 million dollars will remain at the end of 2051. But that doesn't mean 100 million was lost each year, it means 100 million, total, has disappeared.


[edit on 8/5/2009 by C0bzz]

I would say that if you cannot tell me where the money is, you cannot tell me where it has gone, or who has it, or what was bought with it... then that would constitute as LOST. Additionally, you're scenario fails to illustrate what actually happened. What you suggest is that they simply carried over that number and expanded on it.

So, to stay in your bubble for a moment, you claim that the 100million would then be accounted as well as any other "disappeared" funds into the following year (2052 in your example) so that if in 2051 they lost another 100million, what you are saying is that in 2052, they would call that 200 million lost. WRONG.

1998 - Don't know where 1.7 trillion is
1999 - Don't know where 2.3 trillion is
2000 - Cant find, yet another 1.1 Trillion.

Under your assumption, in 2000 they would have reported 5.1 trillion. Nope. Thats for each and every year. And keep in mind I think you are looking at the situation as, they are saying they lost more than the entire budget, thus it's impossible. Well, no, why would they report that if it was unfavorable, AND impossible?

This isn't a budget we are talking about, this money was funneled through the DOD, and the books have a total of 5.1 TRILLION in "IRREGULARITIES" in just 3 years, they didnt even bother with 2001 and 2002 because the books were so bogus that they couldn't even get something coherent from them.

Heres what they said about 2002:

"DoD financial management and feeder systems cannot currently provide adequate evidence to support various material amounts on the financial statements. Therefore we did not perform auditing procures to support material amounts on the financial statements."

Heres what they had to say about 2001:

"We did not obtain sufficient, competent evidentiary matter to support the material line items on the financial statements … the scope of our work was not sufficient to enable us to express, and we do not express, an opinion on these financial statements"

Its 2009, HELLO! 5.1 trillion missing in 3 years, and that was 9 years ago. Can you even grasp how much more money is missing?

[edit on 8-5-2009 by king9072]

So how is it possible to spend far more money than they have received?

[edit on 9/5/2009 by C0bzz]

This isn't a budget we are talking about, this money was funneled through the DOD, and the books have a total of 5.1 TRILLION in "IRREGULARITIES" in just 3 years, they didnt even bother with 2001 and 2002 because the books were so bogus that they couldn't even get something coherent from them.

You're right, the "Books" are not just a budget. Accounting is "The art of recording, classifying, and summarizing in a significant manner and in terms of money, transactions and events which are, in part at least, of financial character, and interpreting the results thereof.".

Pentagon's finances in disarray

By JOHN M. DONNELLY The Associated Press 03/03/00 5:44 PM Eastern

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The military's money managers last year made almost $7 trillion in adjustments to their financial ledgers in an attempt to make them add up, the Pentagon's inspector general said in a report released Friday.

The Pentagon could not show receipts for $2.3 trillion of those changes, and half a trillion dollars of it was just corrections of mistakes made in earlier adjustments.

hv.greenspun.com...

So essentially the books didn't add up so they made $2.3 trillion $ worth of changes without evidence to force them to add up. In 1998 it was 1.7 trillion, in 1999 it was 2.3 and in 2000 it was 1.1 Trillion. That does NOT mean 5.1 trillion is missing neither does it mean 5.1 trillion dollars was magically created out of thin air and spent on black programmes.

In fiscal 1999, a defense audit found that about $2.3 trillion of balances, transactions and adjustments were inadequately documented. These "unsupported" transactions do not mean the department ultimately cannot account for them, she advised, but that tracking down needed documents would take a long time. Auditors, she said, might have to go to different computer systems, to different locations or access different databases to get information.

www.defenselink.mil...

The military says it owns $119.3 billion in ships, trucks, jet engines and more. But its inspector general said he could not verify that because records lacked supporting documentation.

hv.greenspun.com...

So, if 199.3 billion in 2000 was unaccounted for, why would it all of a sudden be accounted for in 2001? It will remain unaccounted for. Furthermore, notice that the 2.3 billion included "balances, transactions and adjustments", which really have nothing to do with money being funnelled through the DoD.

This isn't a budget we are talking about, this money was funneled through the DOD, and the books have a total of 5.1 TRILLION in "IRREGULARITIES" in just 3 years, they didnt even bother with 2001 and 2002 because the books were so bogus that they couldn't even get something coherent from them.

That's not even possible because DoD does not even get 5.1 trillion trillion within three years. (It was funnelled through DoD!?). Neither do the books refer exclusively to money spent in a given year. Rather, balances, transactions, and adjustments.

1998 - Don't know where 1.7 trillion is
1999 - Don't know where 2.3 trillion is
2000 - Cant find, yet another 1.1 Trillion.

Under your assumption, in 2000 they would have reported 5.1 trillion.

Nope indeed. If in 1998 there was a hole of 1.7 trillion dollars that never was accounted for, then in 1999 there is no reason to believe that the 1.7 trillion all of a sudden accounted for. DoD doesn't even get close to the kind of money within a year so it's simply impossible to loose that much in a year.

The Defense Department's inspector general recently identified $6.9 trillion in accounting entries, but $2.3 trillion was not supported by adequate audit trails or sufficient evidence to determine its validity.
Another $2 trillion worth of entries were not examined because of time constraints, and therefore, the inspector general was able to audit only $2.6 trillion of accounting entries in a $6.9 trillion pot.

The problem is a lot worse...

[edit on 9/5/2009 by C0bzz]