
MSU Scholars Find $21T in Unauthorized Government Spending - sillypuddy
http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2017/msu-scholars-find-21-trillion-in-unauthorized-government-spending-defense-department-to-conduct/
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nuttzy99
I'm filing this one under "Don't believe everything you read on the internet"
until more evidence surfaces. The number is just too fantastic. That's the
about the same size as our national debt, making it very hard to believe a
number that large is possible.

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fundingshovel
Same, the article states that the Army alone is missing $6.5 Trillion from
2015...

Roughly speaking that's like 8.8% of the GDP of the planet. That... just
doesn't make sense.

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IdontRememberIt
The US is known to have a massive budget for the defense.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures)

~~~
fundingshovel
Yes... Using that link a source... the US lost more than 4 times what every
country in the world INCLUDING the US legitimately spent.

Or approximately 1/3 of the of the entire us GDP, compared to the 3% listed.

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jondubois
The number sounds ridiculously large but I'm not surprised that these things
happen.

The entire financial system is built on fraud. I think that most people
understand this at least subconsciously.

Many years ago, being honest and forthcoming was beneficial and people
appreciated honesty.

If you made a mistake and were honest about it as soon as it came to your
awareness, people would respect you for it and would be more lenient. These
days this is not the case, being honest is actually a disadvantage. Lying and
cheating is always the best option. People don't give a crap about honesty
anymore, only money and social status.

So in a world where the value of honesty is a negative number, it's not
surprising at all that fraud is rampant.

~~~
mannykannot
It is not clear from the article that this is mostly fraud. It appears that it
might cover anything not done strictly according to procedure or documented
incorrectly.

And 'not done strictly according to procedure' may or may not be a serious
issue in any given case. Most bureaucracies have some rules that are
incomplete, contradictory or simply infeasible.

Audits are a good idea, but I don't expect the $21T figure to stand, except
perhaps in a purely formal way.

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fundingshovel
Read more carefully, that's the total of all improperly accounted for
transactions, not lost money.

While it's still a complete shit show. There's a huge, almost click bate
difference.

~~~
joeframbach
The title right now is "MSU Scholars Find $21T in Unauthorized Government
Spending". Did it change?

~~~
fundingshovel
No, but the report is about journal voucher adjustments which isn't spending
exactly spending.

The report says not that they're "spending" $21T, but that they made a
cumulative amount of errors and corrections in their vouchers equalling $21T
and have really poor audit controls.

While bad audit controls is a legitimate and serious problem, it very much is
not the same as what people normally think of as "Spending".

~~~
roganp
But these are adjustments that are larger than the entire (associated) budget.
How is even possible? How do poor controls lead to these astronomical errors?

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UncleEntity
> Now, the Department of Defense has announced it will conduct the first
> department-wide, independent financial audit in its history

I recall a few (somewhere between 5 and 10) years ago they tried to do an
audit and just threw their arms up in the air and said "impossible".

A bunch of people are going to choke on their morning coffee over this but I'm
just going to say it: Trump promised to bring accountability to government and
here's the DoD performing the impossible. I know, heresy...

~~~
TheWiseOne
Just so you know, this (the audit) was initiated under the Obama
administration back on 2010. All Federal agencies were required to go through
an audit but the DOD got a waiver for 7 years, which is why you are seeing
this now.

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seibelj
I’m constantly amazed with the mental gymnastics people who advocate for tax
increases partake in. The know the government is abysmal with money, yet think
by giving it a blank check that magically all societal ills will be solved.

~~~
candiodari
The problem is that the mental gymnastics of both sides are so full of holes
they are absurd.

The left - we're just going to force everything to be correct and just,
including of course, and most importantly, who has money for what. Needless to
say, historical societies went quite far in this, and to say it didn't happen
is an understatement.

The right - just give more money to people who already have it, and clearly
hoard it (that's what lowering taxes does), and they will make everything just
and correct. Needless to say, historically this has been done and to say
things did not in fact become fair and just is an incredible understatement.

Neither works. Obviously.

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obblekk
Where would a government department get this much actual money? Do they just
have unlimited debit accounts? At some point someone in the treasury has to
transfer the money and notice it’s above the budget right?

~~~
dekrg
It's entirely possible that this spending is within their budgets.

The article talks about unauthorized spending not that they had extra money or
did over budget spending. So a lot of it could depend on how one defines
unauthorized spending.

~~~
cdetrio
It actually does say that the Army spent over their budget:

 _Skidmore got involved last spring when he heard Catherine Austin Fitts,
former assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development, refer to a report
which indicated the Army had $6.5 trillion in unsupported adjustments, or
spending, in fiscal 2015. Given the Army’s $122 billion budget, that meant
unsupported adjustments were 54 times spending authorized by Congress._

~~~
dekrg
US budget for 2015 was 3.688 trillion USD[0]. There are many things that are
possible, but US army spending nearly double of the entire US budget without
anyone noticing isn't one of them.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_United_States_federal_bud...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_United_States_federal_budget)

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cheschire
I’m sure it can be frustrating to try to follow the rules in that environment
when everyone around you seems to be getting their purchases through the
system and you’re constantly being told there isn’t any money. I can imagine
it would create a culture that demands lack of ethics to get anything
accomplished.

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putinontheritz
I worked for the DOE for 12 years. There certainly were shady, sweetheart, and
down right suspicious deals that happen for services, hardware and software.

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TheAdamist
The entire 2015 federal budget was around $3.9 trillion. If just the army had
spent $5.6 trillion in 2015 that would be noticed. This article can't make
extraordinary claims with extraordinary proof (or any proof) to back it up.

~~~
icebraining
The article has a link to [https://missingmoney.solari.com/dod-and-hud-
missing-money-su...](https://missingmoney.solari.com/dod-and-hud-missing-
money-supporting-documentation/)

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sschueller
How are these hidden expenses paid for without being noticed? Is the money
just printed? Wouldn't that cause huge inflation?

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propogandist
US does own the money supply and print money, if you question our authority
then you may be destroyed

see:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWuAct1BxHU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWuAct1BxHU)

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westurner
Unauthorized federal spending (in these two departments) 1998-2015: $21T

Federal debt (2017): $20T

$ 20,000,000,000,000 USD

~~~
westurner
Would a blockchain for government expenditures help avoid this type of error?

We already now have [https://usaspending.gov](https://usaspending.gov) (
[https://beta.usaspending.gov](https://beta.usaspending.gov) ) and expenditure
line item metadata.

Would having traceable money in a distributed ledger help us keep track of
money collected from taxpayers?

Obviously, the volatility of most cryptocurrencies would be disadvantageous
for purposes of transferring and accounting for government spending. Isn't
there a way to peg a cryptocurrency to the USD; even with Quantitative Easing?
How is Quantitative Easing different from just deciding to print trillions
more 'coins' in order to counter debt or inflation or deflation; why is the
government in debt at all?

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westurner
re: Quantitative Easing

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing)

Say I have $100 in my Social Security Fund (in very non-aggressive investments
which need to meet or exceed inflation) and the total supply of money
(including paper notes and numbers in debit and credit columns of various
public and private databases) the total supply of money is $1T with $1T in
debt; if 1T _is printed_ to pay for that debt, is my $100 in retirement
savings then worth $50? Or is it more complex than that?

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down
buy bitcoin

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Juan_Largearm
I'm guessing black ops that they don't want put on the books.

~~~
djKianoosh
it's not that glamorous.

