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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 10 months

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A bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced legislation Wednesday that would require the Pentagon to return a portion of its enormous and ever-growing budget to the Treasury Department if it fails another audit in the coming fiscal year.

The Audit the Pentagon Act, an updated version of legislation first introduced in 2021, comes amid mounting concerns over rampant price gouging by military contractors and other forms of waste and abuse at an agency that's set to receive at least $842 billion for fiscal year 2024.

"The Pentagon and the military-industrial complex have been plagued by a massive amount of waste, fraud, and financial mismanagement for decades. That is absolutely unacceptable," Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement as he unveiled the bill alongside Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

"If we are serious about spending taxpayer dollars wisely and effectively," said Sanders, "we have got to end the absurdity of the Pentagon being the only agency in the federal government that has never passed an independent audit."

In December, the Pentagon flunked its fifth consecutive audit, unable to account for more than 60% of its $3.5 trillion in total assets.

But congressional appropriators appear largely unphased as they prepare to raise the agency's budget to record levels, with some working to increase it beyond the topline set by the recently approved debt ceiling agreement. Watchdogs have warned that the deal includes a loophole that hawkish lawmakers could use to further inflate the Pentagon budget under the guise of aiding Ukraine.

Late Wednesday, following a lengthy markup session, the House Armed Services Committee passed its version of the National Defense Authorization Act, which proposes a total military budget of $886 billion. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) was the only committee member to vote no.

A huge chunk of the Pentagon's budget for next year is likely to go to profitable private contractors, which make a killing charging the federal government exorbitant sums for weapons and miscellaneous items, from toilet seats to ashtrays to coffee makers.

"Defense contractors are lining their pockets with taxpayer money while the Pentagon fails time and time again to pass an independent audit. It's a broken system," said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a co-sponsor of the new bill. "We need to compel the Department of Defense to take fraud and mismanagement seriously—and we need Congress to stop inflating our nation's near-trillion-dollar defense budget."

"Putting the wants of contractors over the needs of our communities," he added, "isn't going to make our country any safer."

If passed, the Audit the Pentagon Act of 2023 would force every component of the Defense Department that fails an audit in fiscal year 2024 to return 1% of its budget to the Treasury Department.

A fact sheet released by Sanders' office argues that "the need for this audit is clear," pointing to a Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq report estimating that "$31-60 billion had been lost to fraud and waste."

"Separately, the special inspector general for Afghanistan Reconstruction reported that the Pentagon could not account for $45 billion in funding for reconstruction projects," the fact sheet notes. "A recent Ernst & Young audit of the Defense Logistics Agency found that it could not properly account for some $800 million in construction projects. CBS News recently reported that defense contractors were routinely overcharging the Pentagon—and the American taxpayer—by nearly 40-50%, and sometimes as high as 4,451%."

Further examples of the Pentagon's waste and accounting failures abound.

Last month, the Government Accountability Office released a report concluding that the Pentagon can't account for F-35 parts worth millions of dollars.

Earlier this week, as The Washington Post reported, the Pentagon said it "uncovered a significant accounting error that led it to overvalue the amount of military equipment it sent to Ukraine since Russia's invasion last year—by $6.2 billion."

"The 'valuation errors,' as a Pentagon spokeswoman put it, will allow the Pentagon to send more weapons to Ukraine now before going to Congress to request more money," the Post noted.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee and a supporter of the Audit the Pentagon Act, said Wednesday that "taxpayers can't keep writing blank checks—they deserve long-overdue transparency from the Pentagon about wasteful defense spending."

"If the Department of Defense cannot conduct a clean audit, as required by law," said Wyden, "Congress should impose tough financial consequences to hold the Pentagon accountable for mismanaging taxpayer money."

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allthecanadianpolitics · 5 months

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Canada expects its military assistance to Ukraine to top $816 million in the current budget year, with major declines forecast in the coming years. The Fall Economic Statement, tabled in the House of Commons by Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland on Tuesday, provides a snapshot of what the Liberal government has spent this year on helping Ukraine's military turn back the Russian invasion.

Tagging @politicsofcanada @allthegeopolitics

#cdnpoli #canada #canadian politics #canadian news #military budget #ukraine #russia ukraine war #military spending

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dontmean2bepoliticalbut · 2 years

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#us politics #news #2022 #twitter #tweet #biden administration #president joe biden #jordan uhl #@jordanuhl #congressional budget office #cancel student debt #student loans #student debt forgiveness #student debt #national defense authorization act #politico #the washington post #military budget

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imkeepinit · 1 year

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Bloated defense budget passes easily but Congress fights over safety net programs

#military budget #social security #safety net programs #budget priorities

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redeyen-eon · 2 years

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[ de-militarised

finance_] i callIT deFI ☠️

#financial markets and investing #military budget #bad mix

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defensenow · 8 days

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davestone13-blog · 12 days

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LAST YEAR, YOU SPENT MORE THAN A MONTH’S RENT ON PENTAGON CONTRACTORS

A dollar by dollar look at how our taxes enrich military contractors — at the expense of things that actually make us secure. By Lindsay Koshgarian | April 10, 2024 Cover Illustration by Sarah Gertler / Institute for Policy Studies. The Roosevelt Island Daily News Ever wonder where your taxes go? Each year, the Institute for Policy Studies releases a tax receipt so you can find out. One item…

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#Military Budget #Taxes #The Pentagon

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philalethistry · 12 days

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Defense Contractors are Padding their Budgets, Money Doesn’t Go to Ukraine

#bernie sanders #ukraine #military budget

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eelhound · 1 year

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"The Pentagon’s bloated and ever-expanding budget undermines American democracy, not only because it never receives the same scrutiny as other government spending, but because it ultimately funnels so much money away from essential social and public goods — as a new report released by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) makes vividly clear. Published annually on Tax Day in collaboration with the National Priorities Project, the institute’s analysis examines Americans’ incomes taxes in relation to military and security spending to show just how much of the average person’s tax bill is going to the likes of cluster bombs rather than hospitals or schools. Its findings are staggering.

This year, the average American taxpayer paid $1,087 just for Pentagon contractors alone — a sum representing twenty-one days of work for the average person and four times what they contributed to K-12 education ($270). They also paid approximately $74 for the maintenance of nuclear weapons, while just $43 went to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). An average taxpayer gave $298 to the five largest military contractors, while only $19 went to programs concerned with mental health and substance abuse. Lockheed Martin, incidentally a major air polluter, received $106 from the average person’s income tax contribution, while a mere $6 went to renewable energy.

The institute has long tracked the wider growth of spending related to domestic policing and securitization. Here the numbers are no less striking: $20 per taxpayer for federal prisons and just $11 for anti-homelessness programs; $70 for deportations and border control versus just $19 for refugee assistance, and on and on it goes.

As part of the study, the IPS also offers an interactive tool showing how money currently going to the military might otherwise be spent. These results are also staggering. For just 10 percent of what America spent on militarization in 2021, it could have funded 660,631 registered nurses, 8.8 million units of public housing, or 1.69 million jobs paying $15 per hour with benefits for an entire year. A mere 1 percent could have funded four-year scholarships for nearly 200,000 students, powered 18.7 million homes with wind or 21 million with solar energy, or salaried approximately 81,000 elementary school teachers over the next twelve months.

Faced with numbers like these, it’s hard to not think about the more generous and humane society that might exist if the institutions of America’s government were less captured by the military-industrial complex. The United States currently spends more on its military than the next nine countries combined (the majority of which are allies), and even a 10 percent cut to its military budget would leave it far ahead of all other countries in total military expenditure."

- Luke Savage, from "Ordinary Americans Are Being Forced to Subsidize the Military-Industrial Complex." Jacobin, 19 April 2023.

#luke savage #quote #quotations #public services #public good #democratic socialism #tax day #taxation #taxes #military industrial complex #militarism #imperialism #government spending #military budget #us military

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carolkeiter · 1 year

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‘War Made Easy ~ How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us To Death’ film within | Corporate Media has Colluded, Acting as Stenographers for the Pentagon

Startling, frightening, no Hollywood horror movie could be more chilling than this political documentary. A Brown University study reveals that the USA has engaged in conflicts with 100 countries. The corporate media has colluded in all the conflicts, acting as stenographers for the Pentagon, rather than questioning and investigating. “20 Years After Iraq Invasion: “War Made Easy ~ How…

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 1 year

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Congress has passed a bipartisan $858 billion defense bill that would give service members a hefty pay raise, bolster support for Ukraine and Taiwan, and rescind the US military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

The Senate voted Thursday to pass the massive National Defense Authorization Act, known as the NDAA, with bipartisan support. It follows the House’s bipartisan approval of the legislation last week.

The legislation now goes to President Joe Biden for his signature. The White House views the removal of the mandate as “a mistake,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday. But she declined to say whether Biden would sign a bill that ends the requirement, noting that the president will “judge the bill in its entirety.”

The defense bill outlines the policy agenda for the Department of Defense and the US military and authorizes spending in line with the Pentagon’s priorities. But it does not appropriate the funding itself.

The must-pass legislation, which would authorize $817 billion specifically for the Department of Defense, would provide $45 billion more than Biden’s budget request earlier this year.

The increase for fiscal year 2023 is intended to address the effects of inflation and accelerate the implementation of the national defense strategy, according to the Senate Armed Services Committee. It would authorize $12.6 billion for the inflation impact on purchases, $3.8 billion for the impact on military construction projects and $2.5 billion for the impact on fuel purchases, according to a bill summary from the Committee.

The NDAA also includes provisions to strengthen air power and land warfare defense capabilities, as well as cybersecurity.

And the legislation shows Congress’ continued support for helping Ukraine repel Russia’s invasion, even though several Republican lawmakers have raised questions about the ongoing US aid.

“That’s the important thing – that you don’t see any diminution in the bipartisan consensus about providing support to Ukraine, despite having heard a lot about rising concerns,” said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank.

Here are some key provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act:

SUPPORT FOR SERVICE MEMBERS AND THEIR FAMILIES

The bill would provide a 4.6% increase in military basic pay for service members, the largest in 20 years. The Department of Defense’s civilian workforce would get the same raise.

It would also bump up service members’ housing allowance by 2% and require a report on a “more transparent, fair, and flexible way to calculate the basic allowance for housing,” according to a summary from the House Armed Services Committee.

The legislation would also increase the eligibility threshold for the Basic Needs Allowance, a new supplemental payment for low-income military families, to 150% of the federal poverty line, up from 130%.

The NDAA would also increase funding for commissaries to help offset higher prices. And it would create a pilot program to reimburse military families for certain child care costs related to a permanent change of station.

It would authorize the reimbursement of up to $4,000 for pet relocation expenses stemming from permanent changes of station to or from locations outside the continental US.

To address the issue of suicides among service members, the bill would require the Defense Secretary to compile a report on suicide rates by military occupational specialty, service and grade. It would mandate that the Defense Secretary brief the congressional Armed Services committees on the preliminary findings of the review no later than June 1.

Some 519 US service members died by suicide last year, according to the Pentagon. The overall suicide rate per 100,000 active-duty service members has slowly increased from 2011 to 2021.

AID FOR UKRAINE

The NDAA would extend and modify the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, as well as authorize $800 million in funding in fiscal year 2023, which is $500 million more than was contained in last year’s defense bill.

The program provides funding for the federal government to pay industry to produce weapons and security assistance to send to Ukraine, rather than drawing directly from current US stockpiles of weapons.

The funding authorization in the defense bill is intended to supplement additional money for the initiative expected in a future federal spending package, according to Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican who wrote the program into law in 2015.

Also, the defense bill would expedite the delivery of munitions to Ukraine and the replenishment of associated US stockpiles by streamlining acquisition requirements and authorizing multiyear procurement for certain munitions, according to the House Armed Services Committee. The authorization would also provide stocks of munitions to US allies and partners, as well as increase the number of munitions that would be needed if China takes action against Taiwan.

It would be the largest number of multiyear procurement contracts for munitions that the defense bill has authorized in recent history, if not ever.

One of the key concerns throughout the ongoing conflict in Ukraine has been whether the industrial bases of the US and other allied nations can meet the demand required to support Ukraine. This measure is focused on reducing bureaucratic red tape to help industry produce those weapons for Ukraine faster.

ENHANCED DEFENSE PARTNERSHIP WITH TAIWAN

The NDAA would establish a specific defense modernization program for Taiwan to deter aggression by China, according to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey.

It would authorize up to $10 billion in Foreign Military Financing grants over the next five years, enhance training and collaboration, and make available up to $2 billion in loans.

It would also give the President the authority to give Taiwan up to $1 billion in weapons and munitions.

And it would create a regional contingency stockpile, which would allow the Pentagon to put weapons in Taiwan for use if a military conflict with China arises, Cancian said.

Wary that Russia’s aggression against Ukraine might prompt China to take similar action against Taiwan, Biden has said several times that the US has an obligation to defend the self-governing island should China invade. Under Biden, as well as his predecessors, the US has sold weapons to Taiwan to strengthen its defensive capabilities.

END OF MILITARY COVID-19 VACCINE MANDATE

The bill would end the requirement that troops receive the COVID-19 vaccine. However, it would not reinstate members of the military who were discharged for refusing to get vaccinated – an amendment conservative senators unsuccessfully offered.

The controversial provision to rescind the mandate was pushed by congressional Republicans. House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy said last week that the mandate’s end is “a victory for our military and for common sense.”

But military officials and experts have warned that it could have adverse ripple effects on military readiness and the ability of service members to deploy around the world.

While White House officials have deferred to – and explicitly sided with – Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s opposition to rescinding the mandate, Democrats concluded that including the GOP priority was a necessity in order to get the bill across the finish line. Administration officials have quietly acknowledged that means their opposition to the vaccine language will not get in the way of the bill’s passage.

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noahjamesmass · 1 year

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❝The bloated defense budget increases $100 Billion…

For no apparent reason…

Now the #military is making commercials recruiting for #submarine technology design something or other?

What the Hell is this‽❞

~ Noah Mass

#Military Budget #Submarine #Noah Mass

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dontmean2bepoliticalbut · 1 year

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#us politics #memes #shitpost #2023 #people's republic of china #china #spy balloon #weather balloon #military industrial complex #military budget #conservatives #gop #republicans #defund the military #world war 3 #spongebob squarepants #the serfs #us military

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juphro · 1 year

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#lol #wtf #seriously #pentagon #failed audit #let's give them more money #clown world #billions #wasted #government #stupidity #fuck you #idk #whatever #eat shit #America #military budget

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bestworstdm · 2 years

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I like how we could take every cent needed for the student debt forgiveness out of our military budget and still have the highest military budget in the world

#us politics #military budget #studen loan forgiveness #i looked it up our military would still have 277 billion #2nd highest is china with 261 billion

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defensenow · 8 days

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