So, You Think You Know the Cost of the Wars?

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

This article from the Center For Defense Information demonstrates not only that Republicans can no longer claim the high ground on fiscal responsibility, but that they just took out the ground floor and moved it to the basement.

Not only have they demonstrated *no* oversight regarding allocations for *their* bills. The congressional budget office cannot even rectify figures amongst wars and programs passed in order to determine WHAT was spent at all.

The article also makes clear that there are accounting problems at the DOD not just with fiscal issues but with the number of individuals actually deployed.

Snip

In a seemingly welcome exercise of congressional oversight, Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., held hearings on the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s the chairman of the subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. He required testimony by all three congressional research agencies (the Congressional Research Service , the Congressional Budget Office , and the Government Accountability Office ) and by the departments of State and Defense.


snip

These estimates present a range of $20.3 billion.<5> Perhaps most troubling, these differences are not over the arcane issue of how much has been “obligated” (that is, cued up inside agencies to be spent for a specific program or contractor) or “outlayed” (actually spent). Instead, these differences are over the relatively simple question of how much has been appropriated in public bills by Congress.



Worse yet, Congress doesn’t seem to know how much it appropriated either. In a letter of July 20, Shays brought the discrepancies to the attention of the chairman of the House and Senate Appropriations Committee. Shays has received no reply, and Hill staff expect he will get none.



snip

Most of the above data pertain to “obligations,” not the money actually spent (outlays). The outlays for the war are impossible to track; DOD mixes those records with outlays for non-war costs, making it impossible to determine if the money was actually spent as DOD, or Congress, intended.<14>



CRS also reported that it is not just DOD’s cost estimates that are problematic. DOD apparently cannot agree with itself on the question of how many military personnel are deployed for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

http://www.cdi.org/program/document.cfm?DocumentID=3601&from_page=../index.cfm

[bryant69]

1. You can't count costs when it comes to killing Muslims

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[valerief]

2. Yeah, it's best to say you don't know where the money is

when you're actually syphoning it out for personal gain.

"Billy, where are the Oreos?"
"I don't know."
"But you were the only one in the kitchen. Did you eat them?"
"I don't know where the Oreos are."

[Old and In the Way]

3. Lomg time. no see

Howahya!

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

6. Good :)

[jonnyblitz]

4. interesting info. CDI is a good source. I used to get their

newsletter in the 90's when I first starting paying attention to politics. :thumbsup:

[Cleita]

5. Double entry bookkeeping is supposed to keep the

figures straight. I guess no one writes anything into a ledger anymore. It seems they run our elections the same way. I'll betcha someone has all the figures stored away in their head just like street swindlers do and they know where all the money is.

[TahitiNut]

8. Federal government cost accounting systems are beyond bizarre.

This ain't your average ledger system. No way. No how.

[Just Me]

7. So, you think you know who profits off wars?

To me, a more important question. No offense.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

9. We already know. We were just trying to figure out what the

return was on investment.

I do think it a cause for concern that the DOD does not even have an accurate accounting of personnel in the region.

[Just Me]

10. Return on investment is to war-mongers and 98% of us pay them for it.

Questions?

DUH?

Are there really people so stupid that they don't GET THAT?

Okay, I am sincerely sorry for being so, "mean" as to lay out the blunt truth. I regret that there are those who are being manipulated into and victimized in such a way. They are not "stupid",....they are being U-S-E-D and being betrayed. It's NOT their fault.

To the contrary, those who take advantage of, deceive and/or betray others are just plain being evil.

[Zomby Woof]

11. That red ink

Is actually blood.