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DoD Independent Audit - first full scale ever
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Surely these adjustments or lack of reporting them was simply a clerical error -

"Skidmore got involved last spring when he heard Catherine Austin Fitts, former assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development, refer to a report which indicated the Army had $6.5 trillion in unsupported adjustments, or spending, in fiscal 2015. Given the Army’s $122 billion budget, that meant unsupported adjustments were 54 times spending authorized by Congress. Typically, such adjustments in public budgets are only a small fraction of authorized spending."

http://msutoday.msu.edu/...partment-to-conduct/

I see stonewalling of epic proportions coming to those who conduct this audit.

Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know; that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, *saves lives*. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said "thank you" and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a *damn* what you think.
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Re: DoD Independent Audit - first full scale ever [TimeIsUp] [ In reply to ]
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TimeIsUp wrote:
Surely these adjustments or lack of reporting them was simply a clerical error -

"Skidmore got involved last spring when he heard Catherine Austin Fitts, former assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development, refer to a report which indicated the Army had $6.5 trillion in unsupported adjustments, or spending, in fiscal 2015. Given the Army’s $122 billion budget, that meant unsupported adjustments were 54 times spending authorized by Congress. Typically, such adjustments in public budgets are only a small fraction of authorized spending."

http://msutoday.msu.edu/...partment-to-conduct/

I see stonewalling of epic proportions coming to those who conduct this audit.

Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know; that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, *saves lives*. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said "thank you" and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a *damn* what you think.

I call BS on this. I’d really like somebody explain to me how just he US Army can spend more in a single year than the entire budget of the US. The notion that this could happen without being caught is ridiculous. An agency cannot spend more than is appropriated. Also, I looked at what they were calling their source documents, and the pages they linked to don’t even remotely back up what they are claiming. It appears to me that they just linked a bunch of pages from DoD finance documents so it would like like they had all sorts of evidence, when in fact it does nothing to bolster their beyond ludicrous claim.

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.
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Re: DoD Independent Audit - first full scale ever [TimeIsUp] [ In reply to ]
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Yeah, spot is correct, there's a lot of BS in that article. My suspicion is that that the "adjustments" were largely moving money around from one pile to another, not authorizing entirely new spending. The moving from one pile to another is a DoD spending gray area that happens all the time. For example if the F-35 program has a shortfall vs. what Congress allocated, and the program really needs money, then some phone calls will be made, and say, some money from the F-22 program could get shuffled around and end up in the F-35 pile. It's a gray area because defying Congressional intent on spending is illegal. But there are legal ways to do it. And if that's the case I have some sympathy for the DoD in that area. Because Congress is not a good budget-maker. They often assign dollar amounts arbitrarily, with no consideration of the budgets or schedules of the people who actually have to build or maintain equipment. Or fight wars.
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Re: DoD Independent Audit - first full scale ever [trail] [ In reply to ]
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Agree with both of you. Zero chance this is as bad as the article makes it sound.

Nevertheless, I don't see the audit being smooth sailing for those hired to do it. I think there is quite a bit of wasteful spending in the DoD, and I'm not sure I want some of that money shifting to be known.

Kudos to Trump for getting the ball rolling though.
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Re: DoD Independent Audit - first full scale ever [trail] [ In reply to ]
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trail wrote:
Yeah, spot is correct, there's a lot of BS in that article. My suspicion is that that the "adjustments" were largely moving money around from one pile to another, not authorizing entirely new spending. The moving from one pile to another is a DoD spending gray area that happens all the time. For example if the F-35 program has a shortfall vs. what Congress allocated, and the program really needs money, then some phone calls will be made, and say, some money from the F-22 program could get shuffled around and end up in the F-35 pile. It's a gray area because defying Congressional intent on spending is illegal. But there are legal ways to do it. And if that's the case I have some sympathy for the DoD in that area. Because Congress is not a good budget-maker. They often assign dollar amounts arbitrarily, with no consideration of the budgets or schedules of the people who actually have to build or maintain equipment. Or fight wars.

The only way you can move money between major accounts like F-22 and F-35 is legally...there is no grey area there. Usually, the reason money does get moved is if some program isn’t spending it. For example, if you have a bunch of 3600 money (USAF R&D funds which you have two years to obligate) and in year two you still haven’t even obligated it, much less spent it, then it’s probably going to get moved to a program that needs more 3600 funds that year. All of that is done completely above board. There is also Below Threshold Reprogramming that doesn’t require Congressional approval, which probably accounts for much, if not most, of reprogramming actions.

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.
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Re: DoD Independent Audit - first full scale ever [TimeIsUp] [ In reply to ]
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Audits were supposed to have begun in 1990 with passage of the Chief Financial Officers Act.
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Re: DoD Independent Audit - first full scale ever [spot] [ In reply to ]
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spot wrote:
there is no grey area there.

Sometimes debatable, from what I've seen. Changing the "color" of money, etc. I tend not to have a problem with it since I consider it to usually be done in the "national interest," not as shenanigans.
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Re: DoD Independent Audit - first full scale ever [trail] [ In reply to ]
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trail wrote:
spot wrote:
there is no grey area there.

Sometimes debatable, from what I've seen. Changing the "color" of money, etc. I tend not to have a problem with it since I consider it to usually be done in the "national interest," not as shenanigans.

Hmmm....i didn’t think it was possible to change the color of money....unless that’s a euphemism for spending, say R&D dollars on something other than R&D. There is some fuzziness there, but not a lot.

That being said, I totally agree with you...the way that the DoD is hamstrung with increasingly arcane rules about how they can spend money is ridiculous.

___________________________________________________
Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.
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Re: DoD Independent Audit - first full scale ever [schroeder] [ In reply to ]
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schroeder wrote:
Audits were supposed to have begun in 1990 with passage of the Chief Financial Officers Act.

But they weren't. At least not full scale external audits. They have known this was coming three years ago when the contracts for the work were issued. Should have everything lined up and nice and neat by now.
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