The United States Department of Defense, aka the Pentagon, has failed its sixth annual financial audit in a row. With trillions of dollars unaccounted for, the department claims that it is still trustworthy.
Townhall reported on Friday (November 17) that Pentagon failed the annual audit of its $3.8 trillion worth of assets across America and around the world. The essential results of this year’s audit are the same as in 2022; auditors only rated seven of the nearly 30 sub-audits as “clean.”
Responding to Pentagon’s latest failed audit, Republican Congressman from AZ Andy Biggs wrote on Twitter/X that any other organization would face consequences for such a huge amount of vanished money.
Questions about Pentagon’s transparency were raised on social media. One conservative voice rhetorically wrote whether the failed audit had something to do with lack of transparency.
Republican Senator Rand Paul’s reaction to the news was no different; he wrote on Twitter/X that the latest audit failure means a call for accountability & transparency, especially of the Pentagon that has the largest budget of any federal agency.
In May 2021, a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators introduced legislation S. 1707 – Audit the Pentagon Act of 2021 – but it died in the Congress and did not receive a vote. Liberal Senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders, one of the co-sponsors of the bill, commented at the time of the legislation’s introduction:
“The Pentagon and the military industrial complex have been plagued by a massive amount of waste, fraud and financial mismanagement for decades. That is absolutely unacceptable.”
On June 20 this year, 7 conservative and 3 Democrat congressmen co-sponsored the Audit the Pentagon Act of 2023 (bill S. 2054) into the Congress where its fate remains undecided. According to the website GovTrack.us that watches status of federal legislation and updates the public, this bill has only a 2% chance of getting past committee and a 1% chance of being enacted.
Despite its inability to account for more than half of its budget for the 6th time in six years, Pentagon Comptroller Michael McCord reportedly sounds more pleased with this year’s failure than that the previous year. He stated that the Pentagon remains a “trusted institution.” Stars and Stripes cited McCord saying:
“We remain a trusted institution, and we recognize that we have the obligation to do everything to maintain that trust. We have made a lot of progress, and I look forward to our continued improvement.”
Independent commentator Emil Cosman posted a video to share his thoughts on the latest failed audit of the Pentagon and said that it shows how some people who are part of the problem are actually in charge of everything; so they won’t be punished.
