The US government may have misspent $21 trillion, a professor at Michigan State University has found. Papers supporting the study briefly went missing just as an audit was announced.
Two departments of the US federal government may have spent as much as $21 trillion on things they can’t account for between 1998 and 2015. At least that’s what Mark Skidmore, a Professor of Economics at MSU specializing in public finance, and his team have found.
They came up with the figure after digging the websites of departments of Defense (DoD) and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as well as repots of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) over summer.
The research was triggered by Skidmore hearing Catherine Austin Fitts, a former Assistant Secretary in the HUD in the first Bush administration, saying the Inspector General found $6.5 trillion worth of military spending that the DoD couldn’t account for. She was referring to a July 2016 report by the OIG, but Skidmore thought she must be mistaking billion for trillion. Based on his previous experience with public finances, he thought the figure was too big even for an organization as large as the US military.
“Sometimes you have an adjustment just because you don’t have adequate transactions… so an auditor would just recede. Usually it’s just a small portion of authorized spending, maybe one percent at most. So for the Army one percent would be $1.2 billion of transactions that you just can’t account for,” he explained in an interview with USAWatchdog.com earlier this month.
https://youtu.be/7CwpjIwwI9o
After discovering that the figure was accurate, he and Fitts collaborated with a pair of graduate students to comb through thousands of reports of the OIG dating back to 1998, when new rules of public accountability for the federal government were set and all the way to 2015, the time of the latest reports available at the time. The research was only for the DoD and the HUD.
“This is incomplete, but we have found $21 trillion in adjustments over that period. The biggest chunk is for the Army. We were able to find 13 of the 17 years and we found about $11.5 trillion just for the Army,” Skidmore said.
The professor would not suggest whether the missing trillions went to some legitimate undisclosed projects, wasted or misappropriated, but believes his find indicates that there is something profoundly wrong with the budgeting process in the US federal government. Such lack of transparency goes against the due process of authorizing federal spending through the US Congress, he said.
Skidmore also co-authored a column on Forbes, explaining his research.
The same week the interview took place the DoD announced that it will conduct its first-ever audit. “It is important that the Congress and the American people have confidence in DoD’s management of every taxpayer dollar,” Comptroller David Norquist told reporters as he explained that the OIG has hired independent auditors to dig through the military finances.
“While we can’t know for sure what role our efforts to compile original government documents and share them with the public has played, we believe it may have made a difference,” Skidmore commented.
Interestingly, in early December the authors of the research discovered that the links to key document they used, including the 2016 report, had been disabled. Days later the documents were reposted under different addresses, they say.
This is probably where the Deep State government called CIA and State Department took their extra fund to topple uncooperative governments around the world. The bulk, of course, may have gone to the military industrial complex.
The United States has double the military budget of the combined military spending of Russia, China and G7 countries. Said military spending remains unauditable due to “widespread material internal control weaknesses, significant uncertainties, and other limitations” according to a GAO report in 2010.
So, how can a government spread its wings beyond its own borders, and demand democratic ideals elsewhere when it is not practicing the same values at home?
It has got nothing to do with democracy
Democracy is a tool, a weapon used by the Elite to control and skim America, the world.
Democracy takes a year to make a decision
Another year to discover it has made the wrong decision
Another year to correct the bad decision
Another year to work out that didn’t work
And so on
Does everyone get the picture
Democracy has to go
We need direct and accountable government
Some call it Fascism. I am not offended
Fascism is a term used to describe Italian politics in between WWI & WWII
Germany adopted National Socialism and created 6 million jobs in three years
And no they were not employed in the armaments industry
Oswald Mosley tried to do the same in England and got gaoled
Direct government is the way to go
All decisions to be made in the interests of the Nation State
If there are capable and honest people at the top there is nothing wrong with a direct system. But exactly at this moment the USA is brought to its knees and the investigations at this moment on practically every terrain are beyond horrible. A secret elite have succeeded to demolish the richest country in the world from to fill their own pockets and to gain power because the people thought that they could trust their government. MIllions of people worldwide died because of the greed of these criminals. The very, very expensive lesson is: people can not trust the government!
Would that have been the case this never cold have happened.
I hear you and agree. The elite have to be exposed and dealt with. The greed has to be removed from capitalism. Direct government requires a charter. America had one it has been shelved. I believe the elite are taking America down and milking it for all its worth on the way down. I believe the elite are behind the rise in China.
I have to agree, it appears democracy is now defunct, the EU is an excellent example, imposition of Muslim infidels on our western civilization. There should have been a referendum? The murder and rape of American Ambassador in Benghazi is one of the worst crimes committed by democrats. How much of $21 trillion went on funding rebels {absolutely undemocratic} creating war all over the middle east. As a notable Professor of Havard and ex Ambassador to China stated last night on CGTV ‘Yang Rui interview’, the US aught to have kept out of the middle east and Afghanistan. One can at least say about Russia/Afghani war Gorilla warfare cannot be dealt with by conventional war without more in-depth intelligence research – but then this meant CIA. US service men received inadequate protection, punished US/UK service men for dealing with terrorists through mild torture.
“Democracy” is already gone, it doesn’t appear in the Dec. of Independence or the Bill of Rights.
Mussolini was a socialist before he was a fascist.
Hitler said he was going to take the “marx” out of socialism.
Stalin said he was going to realize Lenin’s vision.
Lenin said he was going to establish marx’s vision.
And so on.
Does every marxist get the picture?
Big government solving all your problems is not the way to go.
All decisions made in the interest of the nation state is a recipe for totalitarianism.
I don’t need the government to provide me a job, tell me what to think, and who to associate with.
The People’s Court was a Sondergericht (“special court”) of Nazi Germany, set up outside the operations of the constitutional frame of law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Court_(Germany)
I did not say Big government. I said direct government. it only needs to be small. Don’t get hung up on Totalitarianism and Nation State.
You might not need the government to provide you a job though America closed 50,000 factories in 20 years.
I don’t want the government telling me what to do either and governments are doing plenty of that right now.
Germany did not want WWI nor WWII. They were imposed on Germany by the British to take down a new and skilled manufacturing competitor.
Germany knew that Bolshevism would one day attack Europe.
FDR the SOB armed Communist, Bolshevist Russia against Germany
Read: Who Started WWII by Udo Walendy. The section on America is illuminating.
The British and Americans bombed German civilians
Read: Dresden by David Irving and Hellstorm by Thomas Goodrich
We have been lied to about WWII. They have told us what to think and are continuing to do so. Gas chambers? Iraq? Libya? What happened to Libya’s gold?
Now they want to take out Iran and North Korea who I believe is not part of the Reserve banking system
Not gonna happen man, ever. Humans are meant to be free. Totalitarian systems will always fail because it goes against human nature. Freedom is what produces a normal distribution of wealth with the average man having an average amount of wealth. Free markets has been more compatible with human nature, and which unlocks the healthy potential of self-interest, competition, and reputation. Keyword there is COMPETITION. The “free” in free markets refers to trade unencumbered by State involvement. Too bad we don’t have free markets; we have regulated markets (government controlled markets).
I am not so much worried with corporations since in a society where there is free and open competition, their business ‘practices’ cannot thrive. Corporations became a problem when they merged with governments. Hiding behind the constitution, laws, regulations et al which they utilized brilliantly for their own interests – they became untouchable. Stop all subsidies, stop all incentives, stop all privileges and let everyone compete. In other words governments needs to phuck off our lives.
What could be a more direct form of governance than free markets? “Markets” means you and I, pursuing whatever business/endeavor that we think could benefit us. Free trade is voluntary, and therefore nearly always delivers benefits to both parties in every trade. Otherwise, people won’t go through with it. Government-controlled economies, on the other hand, always devolve into power struggles over who gets to loot whom, and someone is always getting screwed – the clueless plebeians. Governments don’t create wealth, governments destroys wealth.
Lastly, people really need to study and learn about USURY because you can ban it, but it will reappear in a slightly altered form, if people aren’t wise to it. Its no wonder they don’t teach this stuff. Its so potent.
Our true wealth is our time and freedom. Money is just a tool for trading your time. It’s a container to store your economic energy until you’re ready to deploy it. But the whole world has been turned away from real money and has been fooled into using fiat currency – a deceitful imposter that is silently stealing our two most valuable assets. Our time and your freedom.
But keep filing that 1040 and sending your tax dollars in.
Almost tge entire national debt, 70000 per person in the us, need a refund and the corruption shut down, those responsible contained.
Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE Device
There is only 21 trillion dollars in existence, idiot …
if you take all Americas debt 20 trillion and add in all the liabilities like future retirement and health care obligations it totals 200 trillion. The figure was quoted in a book I have. Let me know it you require details
Brian, How many dollars are in existence, according to your book? I am not talking about debt obligations. Global debt obligation is in the quadrillions …
And where did the money come from? You can bet the government didn’t have it to spend – they borrowed it at interest from private banks.
Our government currently borrows approximately 20 billion dollars a week from the Federal Reserve. That is roughly 1 trillion dollars a year. I cannot imagine where our government all of a sudden got 21 trillion dollars to run off and spend somewhere. This article is mindless …
@DiamondEyedJAck – it wasn’t “all of a sudden” – at least this tranche was spread out over years, but still an insane number. “Black programs” have existed since at least the 1980’s – and probably long before that. Did the Army serve as a conduit for spending on other services’ weapons development programs? If not – that makes this even worse than it seems.
As far as dollars in existence v. total debt – they will issue the new debt to pay off the old without ever lowering the total sum owed. That plan is safe and secure: witness the farcical “celebrations” over raising the debt ceiling every year. And the federal reserve will only be too happy to deliver the new baby to the money supply. That is one birth they never abort.
I would really be impressed if people like those who authored this piece would research just how much in taxes that blob we call ”
The Fed” has ever paid. I suspect not one thin dime.
& will anyone ever have to do jail time or pay it back…………?
I have to cover a few replies in the same comment.
Sentido Kumon. You have missed something. A bit like saying you may be wrong. The Free Market is not there to benefit you and I. At the moment the world consists of Nation States running trade deficits. If the Nation State is destroyed then everyone buys a product from the world market place, controlled by monopolies. Then there is the slavery to consider. The point you have missed is ‘Free Trade’ is a stepping stone to the New World Order. You want to be free? Oppose the NWO and support your Nation State and your local council where the power is closer to your hands.
DiamondEyedJack. The quadrillions you refer to includes the derivative market which is around 1.5 quadrillion.
Alan Scott. The money was created out of thin air. Fiat. Lincoln & Kennedy were both assassinated for printing money. A government can write a cheque to say build a bridge. Local cement. Local steel. Local wages. No borrowing required. No inflation. No globalist banker. If a part/content is not available local then overseas funds/trade/or barter is required. It is all quite simple.
Through their playing of geo-political leaders in the military-monetary complex, the financial oligarchy has continued to promote conflict, while securing more largess, Quantitative Easing Bailouts and collateral for their $4 thousand trillion of parasitic claims, run up by their large banks and hedge funds. Like gangsters, they have been able own or leverage most of the economy and politicians in the Dollar-Pound-Euro system of the West. / To hold onto this hegemony, the oligarchy will try to block the restoration of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, which would freeze and firewall out their claims, then allowing a credit generating 3rd National Bank to begin infrastructure projects much greater than with the $1.6 trillion proposed by Trump and Higgins. We could bring massive amounts of water from western Canada into the SW and transform it into a giant oasis. There we could build 100 nuplex cities, all interconnected by MagLev High Speed Rail. Then there’s fusion power to invent, and the industrialization of the moon, promoted by the Executive. / Imperial finance will continue to foster partisan bickering and regime change wars to stymie cooperation & win-win foreign contracts. We, not just China et al., could be building dams, high speed rail and nuclear plants in Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe and Indonesia. / If President Trump will come out for the Glass-Steagall Act during his 1/30 State of the Union Address on 1/30, We may become great again and play a central role in an economic + cultural paradigm shift – A New Golden Renaissance, where the oligarchs will be reduced to 1 vote apiece!
YES US CAN