Budget waste in the DoD is hard to find - how do we fix it?

[taxman7]

The U.S. DoD ADL (Advanced Distributed Learning) program is a great example of a "small" - over $100 million - investment of U.S. taxpayer money that on the surface looks like a good thing - providing courses to the troops and military any time and anywhere. But, the reality is that it has gone off on a tangent to create "standards" to allow this when there are many other organizations paid for by industry that already do this. ADL officials and representatives travel the world participating in all types of standards committees that have absolutely nothing to do with service to the U.S. taxpayer. This issue is beginning to get some coverage, and should get more in my opinion:

http://omaha.craigslist.org/pol/802024017.html

http://dyn.politico.com/members/forums/thread.cfm?catid=3&subcatid=12&threadid=1181783

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/issues/alert/?alertid=11807476&content_dir=ua_congressorg

http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=39229

http://www.arguewitheveryone.com/economics-economy/25827-poorly-managed-dod-programs-flying-under-radar.html

http://www3.capwiz.com/mygov/issues/alert/?alertid=11807476&content_dir=ua_congressorg

Another interesting aspect of this program is that because it was off target and is not of benefit to the U.S. DoD or U.S. taxpayers, we now get to pay for a new effort called LETSI that is a global federation - sponsored by U.S. taxpayer dollars. Again, this appears to be a group that now "owns" the work paid for by the taxpayers so they can use it to spend more of our money to do something industry already does for itself. Huh?

Perhaps more importantly though is that this may be one of hundreds of programs like it. How does the U.S. reform its government so that we can be sure that government is not spending tax dollars on things that can be done from private sources?

 

[micahnelson]

I've got just four letters for you. Four.

N M C I

 

[angelatc]

We take away 30% of their budget and let them find it.

 

[tmosley]

We take away 30% of their budget and let them find it.

We take away their entire budget, and bury 5% of it along the borders.

They can dig for it while they patrol them.

 

[Truth Warrior]

Let's see here now 100 million / 711 billion is ..................... ( a rounding error ) ​

 

[Knighted]

0.014% of the defense budget goes toward this program based on above chart.

It might be more prudent to look for waste in programs that constitute a lot larger percentage of the defense budget. More bang for the buck.

 

[New York For Paul]

Some parts of military are underfunded but many programs do have waste. Many of the DOD contractors know not to invoice for $600.00 hammers and toilet seats. They learn that creates sensational press stories and increased scrutiny. Instead they submit management bills to the DOD where it takes eleven engineers to screw in a light bulb and charge 100 thousand dollars for the effort.

It is harder to catch the management and personnel over expenditures.

There are many DOD contractors that surf the internet all day long and earn over 100 thousand a year. They don't do much.

Check the friends of John Murtha, many of them get lucrative defense contracts.

The surest way to become a multi millionaire these days is to become a government contractor.

 

[cbc58]

a new oversight agency should be set up that goes out and finds missing taxpayer money and over expenditures. the staff takes no salary but instead keeps 25% of any money found or saved.

 

[Mister Grieves]

a new oversight agency should be set up that goes out and finds missing taxpayer money and over expenditures. the staff takes no salary but instead keeps 25% of any money found or saved.

There would be rampant corruption in such an agency as virtually any amount that they were guaranteed to be paid could be topped by the people running the wasteful/unecessary projects. It would be like a powerful cousin of the IRS, and we do not want or need that.

The only way it could work would be if you had a sort of Untouchables type organization set up independently by one incorruptible person who gets to hand pick his team and cannot be pursued by any government agency, etc. I just don't see that happening in this day and age. It would be the equivalent of the mob setting up such an agency to regulate them, it just isn't going to happen in the current set up we have.

 

[Truth Warrior]

Math is fun.

If US military spending were just the average from the above pie chart, ($163 BILLION ), that would reduce the above world total by $548 BILLION. The new world total would then be $922 BILLION, with an average of ONLY $102 BILLION each.

Would this, by itself, make for a much more peaceful world, or what?



War is a racket!