I'm not sure if a discussion of defense spending cuts is too R&P for this forum, but I thought I'd at least throw the article out here.
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/want-cut-government-waste-8-5-trillion-pentagon-142321339.html (http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/want-cut-government-waste-8-5-trillion-pentagon-142321339.html)
I get those who say that Defense spending is vital to the security of the country, but I'm not sure how it gets exempted from the same sort of scrutiny that other parts of the government are (rightfully) getting today. A few sample facts from the article:
QuoteThe DOD has amassed a backlog of more than $500 billion in unaudited contracts with outside vendors. How much of that money paid for actual goods and services delivered isn't known.
Over the past 10 years the DOD has signed contracts for provisions of more than $3 trillion in goods and services. How much of that money is wasted in overpayments to contractors, or was never spent and never remitted to the Treasury is a mystery.
The Pentagon uses a standard operating procedure to enter false numbers, or "plugs," to cover lost or missing information in their accounting in order to submit a balanced budget to the Treasury. In 2012, the Pentagon reported $9.22 billion in these reconciling amounts. That was up from $7.41 billion the year before.
The accounting dysfunction leads the DOD to buy too much stuff. One example: the "vehicular control arm" to supply Humvees. In 2008, the DOD had 15,000 parts -- a 14-year supply (anything more than three years is considered excess supply). Yet from 2010 to 2012, it bought 7,437 more of these parts and at higher prices than they paid for the ones they already had.
The military-industrial complex is alive and well today. Which is a shame, because that complex is more about getting money in the hands of contractors than it is about putting the best weapons and equipment in the hands of our men and women in uniform.
FarAway, you are aware that the DOD budget is falling. If I remember, they took the biggest hit in the sequestration last year and are targeted with those hits again next year. I know that sequestration is not actual budget cuts. Per the US Debt clock web site, DOD spending is at $604B and dropping.
This is what happens when the Federal government take on more than it should or is constitutionally allowed. There are over 4.36 million Federal employees, including military.
This is the report that Sen Coburn put out last year, entitled Department of Everything;
http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public//index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=00783b5a-f0fe-4f80-90d6-019695e52d2d
summary:
Quote
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) today released an oversight report, "Department of Everything." The report outlines how DOD can save $67.9 billion over ten years by making specific cuts to what Dr. Coburn describes as "non-defense" defense spending – spending that DOD can cut without cutting vital defense priorities.
"I believe in peace through strength but we cannot be strong militarily unless we are strong economically. And we cannot be strong economically if we treat politically-sensitive areas of the budget as sacrosanct. At a time when our own military leaders are calling our debt our greatest national security threat we need to look at every area of the budget for potential savings. No part of the budget can be taken off the table. Achieving peace through strength, and getting our debt under control, must involve refocusing the Pentagon on its core mission," said Dr. Coburn.
"I prepared this report because the American people expect the Pentagon's $600 billion annual budget to go toward our nation's defense," Dr. Coburn added. "That isn't happening. Billions of defense dollars are being spent on programs and missions that have little or nothing to do with national security, or are already being performed by other government agencies. Spending more on grocery stores than guns doesn't make any sense. And using defense dollars to run microbreweries, study Twitter slang, create beef jerky, or examine Star Trek does nothing to defend our nation."
The $67.9 billion in savings in the "Department of Everything" report could pay for a third of the cost of the planned fleet of new strategic bombers for the Air Force. It could, likewise, pay a third of the cost of the fleet of Ohio-class replacement nuclear submarines for the Navy. For the Army, $16 billion over ten years – about 25 percent of the savings in the report – could mean robust funding for modernization or purchase of new rifles and light machine guns for every soldier.
Five areas in DOD highlighted in the report that have little to do with defense include:
• Non-Military Research and Development ($6 billion)
• Education ($15.2 billion)
• Alternative Energy ($700 million)
• Grocery Stores ($9 billion)
• Overhead, Support and Supply Services ($37 billion)
In addition, the report found:
• Pentagon-branded beef jerky (p. 22);
• A reality cooking show called Grill it Safe featuring two "Grill Sergeants" who performed a 46-minute cooking video (p. 8);
• Pentagon-run microbreweries (p. 8);
• A smart phone app to alert users when to take a coffee break (p. 20);
• A bomb detector less effective than "a coin flip" (p. 15);
• Research examining the social interaction between robots and babies (p. 31);
• A workshop asking "Did Jesus die for Klingons too?" (p. 16);
• More flag officers per troop than at the height of the Cold War (p. 69)
• DOD overhead expenses greater than Israel's GDP (p. 69)
But how much more could they cut if they would manage to get the proper audits done? I think that was the real point of the OPs article. We don't KNOW what's really being wasted in the first place. My guess is that Coburn only hit the most low hanging fruit. He's got the right idea but the scope of the budget examination must be expanded.
"The Pentagon uses a standard operating procedure to enter false numbers, or "plugs," to cover lost or missing information in their accounting in order to submit a balanced budget to the Treasury. In 2012, the Pentagon reported $9.22 billion in these reconciling amounts. That was up from $7.41 billion the year before."
Really? REALLY??
While my own sense is that Defense spending is more than it should be, that's not really the point I was trying to argue here. Rather, my point was exactly what DoctorQuest articulated: The DoD has done a really crappy job of managing its own Finances.
As a Corporate Finance professional with almost 15 years experience, I'm appalled by this stuff. This isn't an issue of "We spent some money and realized we could maybe spend it better." This is an issue of "We lost track of $9.22 billion last year and we don't have any idea if we spent it, how we spent it, or whom it went to. We just know we lost it somehow."
That's 1.5% of their total freaking budget! $9.22 billion is more than the total annual earnings of lots of Fortune 500 companies. That just speaks of gross financial malfeasance, especially coming on the heels of similar problems the year before.
Many conservatives decry waste and lack of transparency in government, but stand up and fight hard for increased military outlays. I understand arguing that the DoD should be near the top of our funding priorities, but a willingness to give them a free pass on financial accountability strikes me as the depths of hypocrisy.
they 'lost' the money to buy another carrier.
Don't knock the Pentagon branded beef jerky before we have tried it. This calls for further study.
what about the beer?
They're considering more cuts to benefits, anyway. I had heard something about stateside commissaries being closed, too.
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/11/26/pentagon-considers-more-cuts-to-troop-benefits.html?comp=1198882887570&rank=9
QuoteBase commissaries, golf courses, bowling alleys, recreation centers, auto hobby shops, and even the Stars and Stripes newspaper might have to go as a result of the current budget crisis, Pentagon officials said Tuesday.
n addition to shutting down Stars and Stripes, DoD is also considering elimination of the Pentagon Channel and programming cuts to American Forces Network.
In 2013, the American Forces Radio and Television Service cost DoD about $51.6 million. The budget for the Pentagon Channel was $6.1 million, and the subsidy for Stars and Stripes' was $7.8 million, according to Pentagon officials.
The military currently has 178 commissaries stateside, and another 70 overseas. Col. Warren said that "no commissaries are about to close," but closing them is definitely under consideration.
http://spousebuzz.com/blog/2013/11/commissary-closure-plan-everything-you-need-to-know.html?comp=1198882887570&rank=2&doing_wp_cron=1385562734.4163959026336669921875
QuoteYou've heard that there is a plan in the works to close stateside commissaries — but what is the real story? Is this just a scare tactic from the Defense Department or are stateside commissaries really going to close?
Members of the Defense Department's Joint Staff recently asked officials at the Defense Commissary Agency to come up with a plan to close all stateside stores, military benefits columnist Tom Philpott and the Army Times reported last week.
With the Pentagon required to find $50 billion in cuts for their 2015 budget proposal nothing is safe from examination, Pentagon officials told us in a statement.
While numerous sources have told us and other publications that there is a closure plan in the works, DoD and commissary officials declined to confirm it on the record.
They did not, however, deny it.
That sucks if they choose to do any of this. I was a military brat growing up and remember how central the commissary and on-base entertainment was to us.
heaven forbid they get a hold of their procurement issues first. ::)
Or, just for a start, reduce the number of generals and admirals to, oh, WWII levels maybe??? Hell, even Cold War or Vietnam levels would be an improvement.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffabiusmaximus.files.wordpress.com%2F2012%2F09%2F20120910-pogo-11.jpg&hash=4543454a45fe0587f0c09d8290a1aafa4d5bc36d)
Quote from: Steelgrave on November 27, 2013, 11:56:35 AM
Or, just for a start, reduce the number of generals and admirals to, oh, WWII levels maybe??? Hell, even Cold War or Vietnam levels would be an improvement.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffabiusmaximus.files.wordpress.com%2F2012%2F09%2F20120910-pogo-11.jpg&hash=4543454a45fe0587f0c09d8290a1aafa4d5bc36d)
Works for me.
One of the problems is that we're much more effective with smaller footprints now than we were in WWII. Back then, we'd need an entire division or more to accomplish what we can do with a brigade these days. However, what hasn't gone down are
(a) the number of HQs we keep around (in part a legacy of our mobilization-centric military that ramps up for war and back down after) so we have C2 to absorb units as they mobilize and form for the warfighting effort
and
(b) the inflation we put on the ground in coalition environments so our guys are stuck calling some Estonian 2-star "sir" as the senior guy in the room.
Everywhere we're fighting in a coalition somewhere, there's a US guy with more shit on his shoulders than anyone else, which is why we have a 2-star division HQ in the Balkans, with all of 1 maneuver brigade working for him. It's why we have a 4-star in Afghanistan to look eye-to-eye with the Afghan military leadership, despite only having 1 corps HQ (3-star) underneath him. The more of these joint/interagency/coalition deployments you see, the more you'll see unnecessarily-higher ranked US leaders, so our guys don't get pushed around by some coalition weenie with a power trip and 12 guys in theater.
I'm not saying it's right - I'm just explaining the reasoning behind it.
I get what you're saying, BB. But I've also heard that you need more three and four stars because the job is so political now, etc..... Seems like the same logic that leads to bird colonels being glorified errand boys in the Pentagon. It's especially heinous when you consider the college-education level of mid to senior NCO's in the service, many of whom have Bachelors degrees and not a few Masters. Case in point...my wife left the service after 25 years with six or seven Associates degrees,two Bachelors and a Masters and was a First Sgt for combat troops during the latter part of her enlistment. I mean, seriously....how much leadership is needed when your troops are more educated than the officers in many countries?
More graphs because everyone loves graphs....
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffabiusmaximus.files.wordpress.com%2F2012%2F09%2F20120910-pogo-5.jpg&hash=b4a45e654a5167d8c5b38eddfe67ebb3723781ff)
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffabiusmaximus.files.wordpress.com%2F2012%2F09%2F20120910-dv-71.jpg&hash=ac6b0730043ca715001c24d8ad7c1067a31f57c4)
And really....how can the Navy justify this?
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffabiusmaximus.files.wordpress.com%2F2012%2F09%2F20120910-pogo-7.jpg&hash=53a84498d01f6317fd4f66b99ebe5db3adc1b823)
Quote from: Steelgrave on November 27, 2013, 02:01:08 PM
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffabiusmaximus.files.wordpress.com%2F2012%2F09%2F20120910-pogo-7.jpg&hash=53a84498d01f6317fd4f66b99ebe5db3adc1b823)
To be perfectly honest I've promoted myself to Fleet Admiral of the Grogheads Interplanetary Naval Armada.
Just between you and me - I don't have a single working interplanetary planet busting starship.
^But we're all working on it!
Yeah. All this gloom and doom about having to cut back on weapons systems when they can't get their own finance function in order is pathetic.
Whether you're producing guns or butter, you can't expect to do a good job unless you can correct glaring deficiencies in your own organizational management abilities. And these are glaring.
To use a private sector analogy, they're effectively padding the ranks of top management while management continues to stink it up. That's a bad sign in the performance of a for-profit company, and it doesn't bode well for the DoD.
Quote from: Steelgrave on November 27, 2013, 11:03:38 PM
^But we're all working on it!
And it's much appreciated, but the trend is set: we do indeed have more admirals than ships - even in my intergalactic empire.
Quote from: bayonetbrant on November 27, 2013, 01:11:28 PM
One of the problems is that we're much more effective with smaller footprints now than we were in WWII. Back then, we'd need an entire division or more to accomplish what we can do with a brigade these days. However, what hasn't gone down are
(a) the number of HQs we keep around (in part a legacy of our mobilization-centric military that ramps up for war and back down after) so we have C2 to absorb units as they mobilize and form for the warfighting effort
and
(b) the inflation we put on the ground in coalition environments so our guys are stuck calling some Estonian 2-star "sir" as the senior guy in the room.
Everywhere we're fighting in a coalition somewhere, there's a US guy with more shit on his shoulders than anyone else, which is why we have a 2-star division HQ in the Balkans, with all of 1 maneuver brigade working for him. It's why we have a 4-star in Afghanistan to look eye-to-eye with the Afghan military leadership, despite only having 1 corps HQ (3-star) underneath him. The more of these joint/interagency/coalition deployments you see, the more you'll see unnecessarily-higher ranked US leaders, so our guys don't get pushed around by some coalition weenie with a power trip and 12 guys in theater.
I'm not saying it's right - I'm just explaining the reasoning behind it.
Just do like we do in Denmark.
give the Guy a temporary promotion until he is back home ;)