Pentagon buries evidence of $125 billion in bureaucratic waste

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

The Pentagon has buried an internal study that exposed $125 billion in administrative waste in its business operations amid fears Congress would use the findings as an excuse to slash the defense budget, according to interviews and confidential memos obtained by The Washington Post.

Pentagon leaders had requested the study to help make their enormous back-office bureaucracy more efficient and reinvest any savings in combat power. But after the project documented far more wasteful spending than expected, senior defense officials moved swiftly to kill it by discrediting and suppressing the results.

The report, issued in January 2015, identified “a clear path” for the Defense Department to save $125 billion over five years. The plan would not have required layoffs of civil servants or reductions in military personnel. Instead, it would have streamlined the bureaucracy through attrition and early retirements, curtailed high-priced contractors and made better use of information technology.

The study was produced last year by the Defense Business Board, a federal advisory panel of corporate executives, and consultants from McKinsey and Company. Based on reams of personnel and cost data, their report revealed for the first time that the Pentagon was spending almost a quarter of its $580 billion budget on overhead and core business operations such as accounting, human resources, logistics and property management.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/pentagon-buries-evidence-of-125-billion-in-bureaucratic-waste/2016/12/05/e0668c76-9af6-11e6-a0ed-ab0774c1eaa5_story.html?utm_term=.bd5eb89c680e&wpisrc=al_alert-COMBO-exclusive%252Bnational#comments

[TreasonousBastard]

1. Every organization spends on that-- what's a normal percentage?

[babylonsister]

2. Very interesting it's being dredged

up almost a year later.

[JudyM]

3. All federal bodies should without any question be audited regularly for waste, conflicts of

interest, and poor processes. Huge pet peeve. We'd be saving so much taxpayer money. I was in there, I saw it up close on a regular basis.

[niyad]

4. and that is just the amount to which they are admitting!!

[lpbk2713]

5. Such an irony that a (R) made the observation ...

[IronLionZion]

6. Oh yeah, but, but, but some family somewhere is using food stamps

I'm impressed WaPo has gotten this type of info. Usually the Pentagon would keep things like this a secret for "national security reasons". They do not want their budget cut.

Drumpf has promised to increase the size of our military and probably increase their funding. Republicans in congress will likely appropriate the funds for it.

Someone is benefitting from continuing that waste of money. I highly doubt it is any of the workers.

[Doc_Technical]

7. Pocket Change, let's talk about some real money

https://www.google.com/#q=september+10+2001+pentagon+missing+money

[LiberalLovinLug]

8. I'm sure that CNN will be talking about this all day....

...













not

[DK504]

9. I swear to God

"....The plan would not have required layoffs of civil servants or reductions in military personnel. Instead, it would have streamlined the bureaucracy through attrition and early retirements, curtailed high-priced contractors and made better use of information technology. "

This is the shit that makes me want to scream and throw my computer across the room. HOW the F do they keep getting away with this? When MIC execs say they can save $125 BILLION a year that's saying something. Even pond scum like the MIC execs are trying to save money and without cutting out their fat shares of the pie.

I am about to lose my mind. And where is the AG, the FBI, the president???

Is this ever going to be discussed anywhere but here?

[sab390]

10. GS & A varies widely

Some charities spend 90% on it. They, of course, are pure scams. The Catholic Archbishops fund spends 5% so you can know what's possible. For business it can be between 15 and 7. All systems have waste and trying to get rid of it is a constant task. The Auditor of the U.S. says there is 1 trillion that the DOD can't find. That's not a big problem, it's in space or out in the desert, things that are secret. And if you want good accounting go to Price Waterhouse, the military is here to defend us. It would be nice to be as efficient as possible but there is a lot of waste in business, the republican ideal, too. Waste is a given, minimizing it a task. DOD is notorious for bad accounting and bad business practices. Cleaning it up would be good but it will never be great. Like I say, they aren't accountants, it's not their job. Every lost dollar will never be found, all you can do it try to keep it low. The Republican response to waste is always "cut the program off entirely". Of course, only when it is a social program. You just have to accept that nothing is perfect and government is only slightly worse than business.