Kucinich: "the Pentagon cannot properly account for $1.2 trillion in transactions"

[jmowreader]

25. How much of that never made it to DoD?

One of those things we prim, proper liberals don't discuss is the role of the defense budget in holding money for non-defense expenditures and controversial shit that could never be enacted in stand-alone bills.

This speech was given in 2002, when Bush could do anything he wanted. He and his minions were packing cash in huge leather satchels and shipping it to their contractor buddies, declaring it "defense expenditures."

A treasury officer named Eliot Ness was sent to Chicago. during Prohibition to rid the town of strong drink and to jail one Al Capone. Because putting Capone in jail rather than punishing him for some specific thing he'd done was the goal, Ness prepared a series of cases against Capone. If he was acquitted on one charge another would immediately be brought. How this applies: Since Bush did so many things, I would start by charging him with looting the Treasury to enrich his friends.

On real expenditures, the military has always been real nit picky. And this went down to the smallest expenditure: in 1991 the government gave unit fund councils $20 per soldier to throw a Fourth of July party. The council president had to account for the money to buy the food, the raw food to ensure no one took any home, the cooked food to ensure only approved people ate it...I almost thought they were going to require the troops to shit in buckets the next day so we could weigh it. When The Troops spend money there are extremely tight controls - ask any supply sergeant or mess hall headcounter. It's private industry that throws it around.