The Pentagon Is Not Good At Managing Their Budget, Yet We Keep Giving Them More.

In 2018, the US Congress approved $639 billion in military spending.

On January 9, 2019, Forbes ran a story titled: "Holding U.S. Treasurys? Beware: Uncle Sam Can't Account for $21 Trillion" which involved the Departments of Defense and Housing and Urban Development.

In 2019, the US Congress approved $686.1 billion for the Department of Defense. 

On January 23, 2020, Yahoo posted a story from the Financial Times titled, "The Pentagon's $35 Trillion Accounting Black Hole," which described the situation as a "persistent lack of internal financial controls at the Pentagon." 

In 2020, the US Congress approved $714 billion for defense spending. 

On May 19, 2021, NPR published a story titled, "The Pentagon Has Never Passed An Audit. Some Senators Want to Change That," which reminds us the the Pentagon's "first-ever independent financial audit" was in 2017 and that "the department has never detailed its assets and liabilities in a given year." Senators Bernie Sanders, Chuck Grassley, Ron Wyden and Mike Lee led the charge for more accountability. 

In 2021, Congress approved a defense budget of $753.5 billion. A December 15, 2021 New York Times article reported the amount to be $768 billion. In the Senate, Sanders, Wyden and Lee voted "no" on the amendment to the bill and on the motion to invoke cloture (Grassley voted "yea" on both). 

Some Thoughts:

• From a fiscal responsibility POV: I no longer want any elected official to shame voters for poor budgeting or mishandling their finances. If they cannot hold the Pentagon, accountable, they have no right to criticize someone for treating themselves to the mall after they've been scraping for months.
• We should note that George W. Bush was the MBA President who was going to run government like a business, and that Donald Trump was an actual businessman. Regardless their politics, they did not preside over the Pentagon as a CEO. Any real life company who lost between $21 and $35 trillion would have been crucified in the court of public opinion and investigated into oblivion (I understand this happened after Bush's term, but there are stories of missing money during his administration as well).
• The next time a politician complains about paying for a universal health care system (ala MedicareForAll) we should remind them of the Pentagon's "lack of internal financial controls."