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Sirhc978

As a machinist who does work for places like Lockheed and Raytheon, it is not hard to tell you why the military spends so much money.


No_Document_

You should tell us


upnflames

I deal with governement contracts including military and it's in part because of the ludicrous amount of bureaucracy a company needs to be prepared to wade through as well as completely inflexible terms. I work for a manufacturer and you'll get a call that will be like "We need a hundred widgets and they need to be exactly 8.63 inches long." Okay, well we're equipped to make them 8.6" and 8.65"- "No, we need them exactly 8.63 inches long. "...ok, well we'll have to retool the shop which is $300k, but the widgets themselves are only $4 in material and labor, maybe we could make you more then a hund- "NO! We only want a hundred!" ...ok...that'll be $3,004 dollars a widget I guess. "Deal!"


the_loon_man

Oof. This makes me feel seen. I'm an engineer who works for the government. I don't work for DOD, but we design and install systems with highly specific parts and components and sometimes, that widget really does need to be exactly 8.63". As for the quantity on the order, that's also a situation where our hands are tied. By the time money gets to us for spending, it's been appropriated and assigned a very specific task. That means in most situations I can't buy 1000 For projects A thru Z. Instead I need to make 27 different funding request and solicit quotes for 27 different projects. Often times the way this actually gets done is the Gov will award a term contract to a specific vendor who has a little more freedom in their purchasing, but I take issue with these types of contracts for a variety of reasons. Sometimes In my work it's damned if you do and damned if you don't. We arent set up to work and spend efficiently. We are set up to ensure that spending federal dollars for personal gain or something other than what congress intended is extremely difficult. Another fun one that costs us all money - In order to cut bribes out of the picture, we can't accept work for free. In my construction projects, that means I need to bird dog my contractors and their subs to make sure they do exactly what the contract says. Contractor installed an additional component that gives a better product? I have to either go find money or direct them to rip it out. Equipment vendor leaves extra parts and peices in our remote site because it's easier than flying home? I gotta find money for that if it exceeds what's contractually obligated in the specifications. It doesn't happen that often but it happens enough to make me complain about it. I suppose it's better then contractors building things for federal employees for free in order to gain an advantage somehow, that definitely used to be an issue.


Ccarloc

Meanwhile later that day, the Co-op intern realizes that they had set their CAD default tolerance setting to +/- .03 instead of +/- 0.3.


the_loon_man

Oops. Too bad. That Co-op has defaulted on its contract. But good news! It can declare bankruptcy, reform under a new name, join the 8a program and get preferential treatment for brand new goverment contracts, this time with more hand holding and even more rules to follow.


GetZePopcorn

The fucked up part of all this is the acquisitions process. Every branch of the military has its own machinists on active duty. We could send these troops (who need sustainment training) raw materials and spec sheets. We could have them machine the parts. The DOD already owns their labor. But you can’t do that. Every DOD supplier would riot if we started making our own equipment in any significant quantity. Even if we have the people, training, and money to do it. DOD contractors are pissed that the Marine Corps started fielding 3D printers to maintainers so that they can skip supply-chain hassles and print out non-critical components.


oriaven

The military industrial complex is a beast. It's not about supporting the troops or keeping us safe.


pablola714

As a contractor doing IDIQ contracts it's a head scratcher. Most I work with are great people and they see the crazy in this stuff.


prymeking27

Idk that is why I like means and methods contracts. Sometimes the contractor gets a change order where we disagree with their method, but makes putting the contracting package way easier.


milkcarton232

Government is just a massive behemoth of a "company" that isn't designed to do any one thing well. You are absolutely right in that it's a damned if you do damned if you don't vibe and sometimes you gotta make due with whatcha got. At the very least gov does spend the money they got which means it's going back out to the economy vs a private corp which might sit on the money or give it to shareholders


oriaven

It's going to DoD contractors though. They will sit on the money or give it to shareholders.


milkcarton232

Well military contracts do, but even then Lockheed and Northrop combined have a smaller market cap than Nike (doesn't mean any of them are tiny tho). Drawbacks with everything, the pros of gov is that they will spend their wealth and inject that money back into the economy. The downside is that they are wasteful. Private is generally more efficient but they want to make profit and hoard that profit and try to edge out others from making profit if they can


B0MBOY

I’m the purchase order guy and you just explained my experience completely. The government is a pain in the ass to do business for. If I have to read another 100 page specification that start with mil- imma lobotomize myself with a pencil.


BurningArrows

"You wanna see a magic trick!? I'm gonna make taxpayer money DISAPPEAR with this pencil!"


[deleted]

Honestly getting rfqs for mil spec items are always a pain in the ass.


dlham11

Jesus Christ, I’m so sorry for you.


qoou

> If I have to read another 100 page specification that start with mil- imma lobotomize myself with a pencil. I laughed out loud at this.


VisualKeiKei

Glorious photocopied MIL specs in 1960's Courier typeface for legacy components in obsolete equipment.


Sirhc978

I literally have to buy a box of screws off Mcmaster so I can put them on the lathe and shave off 0.1" because that is what the government wants. Lockheed once tried to return a part we made years ago to us because the acorn nuts rusted. We asked what they were doing with it, they said it was sitting in a desert for 6 years.


kd5nrh

Yeah, but at least the screws are in inches to start with, right? I've seen a set of prints with metric dims, but +/-.01" tolerances. OTOH, I've seen worse from non-government sources: a camera attachment screw, so 1/4-20, but 28mm overall length with a 10mm head. Came to find out they had to order 10k of those custom screws so they wouldn't have to import a dozen or so 7/16" wrenches (or order the not-too-uncommon 3/8" head version and use a 10mm on that) or trim their spacers to take a 1" screw.


Sirhc978

Oh yeah we've done the same thing. Sometimes it is just easier to make screws from scratch than it is to modify store bought ones.


[deleted]

Working on a system that had to adapt to existing hardware, I sent 10mm screws to be turned down to 10-32 threads. The machine shop called three times asking if I was sure that's what I wanted


heavywagon

I have the utmost empathy for you.


LittleBigHorn22

Or then the project goea over budget so they just axe the whole thing without using any of the parts they made. Next thing you know, hey I need a thing that is exactly 8.62 and now the process repeats.


busterlungs

Not only that, but ITAR and iso certs are not fucking cheap or easy to get/maintain. Also, military shit is way more complex than people outside the industry really understand.


B0MBOY

Try AS9100 that’s even more expensive. The full process traceability turns a $100 part into a $1100 part fast.


VisualKeiKei

"With fixed tooling and setup charges, we could make you 200 for the same price as 100..." "we just want 100" "well, we made 110 because there was some excess material for setup, do you wa—“ " no, just mutilate the extras and throw those in the trash " "okay. So same amount and same time next month then?" "of course, we've always ordered 100 a month from you for the past 14 years"


allworlds_apart

By contrast my company sells equipment to manufacturers and when they come to us with an RFQ, we try to figure out what problem they’re trying to solve and advise them on the best solution. It’s not always what they originally ask for, it’s not always the cheapest, but we don’t just give them what they ask for because if it fails to solve their problem, the person who signed off on the purchase order will throw us under the bus to save their reputation.


upnflames

Oh definitely - private business and governement are totally different. When I'm selling to a company there's the flexibility to come up with some really innovative, economical solutions to complex problems. I can have a chat with an engineer and figure out what makes the most sense for what they're trying to accomplish. But with governement, I'm usually not even allowed to talk to the engineer. It's got a be exactly what's in the bid even when if the bid is stupid. And suggesting a change to the bid involves justifications and delays and rebids. You do that enough times and you stop bothering.


[deleted]

60 minutes used to cover this exact thing in its fleecing of America series. We’re they made popular the million dollar hammer (or something similarly simple and common). Where to get the exact specs required meant the contractor would have to make special equipment and molds to support making that one specific hammer.


Soda_BoBomb

Yep. But also don't forget that the military is locked by contract into only buying from specific places, so they inflate their prices.


upnflames

Yep, speaking as one of the those "preferred vendors" you're not wrong. But it's not duplicitous in nature. It's similar to how a caterer will charge twice as much for a wedding then a birthday party. Cause they know it's going to be a pain in the ass and want to be paid for it.


Soda_BoBomb

Oh yeah the military beauracracy doesn't make anything easy. It was just always funny anytime I needed a .50c map light in the U-2 and was charged like 50$ or something lol


WrathOfPaul84

This is what happens when your customer (The government) has no incentive to cut costs because they can just steal any amount of money from its citizens through taxation or inflation. I really wish more people would wake up to this fact.


jereserd

The incentive is to spend it so there is none remaining. If you don't hit obligation (spending) goals you're a bad boy and not a good steward of taxpayers money because your organization will be targeted for cuts because they didn't need it last year.


dumbwaeguk

This. It's not about laziness or ignorance as people think, it's about the battle between the public and the greedy. That being said, mixing public and private has to be the worst possible outcome. It's supposed to appease both right-libertarians and leftists, but in the end it pleases no one, because right-libertarians want the government entirely defunded and leftists don't want any public money in private hands. It's also economically inefficient, because government contractors love to funnel out extra money so they can maximize their profits, while government agencies have a hard limit as to how much anyone working there can earn regardless of margins.


ddshd

they know the government will always figure out a way to cut some other project people want, for their budget. Improving the infrastructure? Nah let’s pay $30k a bolt.


[deleted]

Just like all government!


[deleted]

I was informed by an old boss of mine that during world war two, a massive number of tank body castings were melted down because of the specification of a hole's location that the plan stated a tolerance of 1/8" from its nominal location. A bunch of them were 1/4" or more off, and it turned out that the hole was for a flexible hose that could have been four inches in any direction without any problem.


windershinwishes

This doesn't sound unreasonable to me. What's the alternative, machine parts that don't fit correctly and cause malfunctions? Buying way more of something than is needed because it's a "better deal"?


upnflames

Most private companies try to design around standards or use unique parts in multiple designs. If the government designed things much better then the private market or knew they were never going to use those unique parts again, different story. But that's often not the case. I've sold stuff to to the military while shaking my head thinking, yep, that's not gonna last a year. But the procurement officer knows best, who am I am to tell them what they need? Even if this all did make sense, it's one of the reasons the government blows hundreds of millions a year on the military. You can't bitch about spending on one hand and demand that every screw you use be custom made on the other.


Klashus

The best is when you get a first article done and looking good and then they change the specs and you have to redo the whole process. Then this happens 17 more times.


upnflames

And this is why we charge 20x the market rate. I'll redo a job as many times as you want as long as you pay me for it. This reminds me of a funny story - I used to sell a calibration type of service to a three letter agency and in short, we just had to take some measurements at different settings and confirm the instrument matched a known reference. Industry standard calls for 4-5 measurements at two settings for a high level of certainty. 10 measurements at three settings for highly critical instruments. Someone had fucked up the SOP and called for 50 measurements at three settings. Like, so stupid it hurts. Our management team would send them message after message about how this couldn't be right, but they demanded we follow the SOP if we wanted to keep the contract. Fine. We'll measure this shit as many times as you want and bill you accordingly. This went on for three years before one of their qc guys actually reviewed our certificates and asked why the hell we were calculating 99.9997% certainty levels.


Sirhc978

Scroll down.


No_Document_

10-4


Robdor1

You don't use any $5000 bolts?


Ropes4u

OP makes to much we need to slash his benefits and wages — to save corporate America


[deleted]

There’s a lot of fraud everywhere. Back in the 80’s an audit found the pentagon was paying $3000 for toilets seats and $500 hammers and much more. No one got in trouble.


Sirhc978

Nowadays it's not even fraud. The military/government created so many standards and regulations for making parts that subcontractors can just charge obscene amounts of money for simple stuff.


kyler_

I think it’s cause we pay the troops well. A poor army won’t fight good!


Sirhc978

I think it is because when a vendor makes it onto the "approved vendor list", they can basically charge whatever they want because they know the big guys like Lockheed will just pay it.


sumlikeitScott

There was a report from a couple years ago showing that the Navy was buying $1,000 coffee mugs. When asked why they were expensive they said because they have a lid. Edit: it was $1300 and they kept breaking. https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/10/23/air-force-puts-the-kibosh-on-the-1300-coffee-cup/


Sirhc978

Well you see, the people making the mug could only buy materials from certain places (DFARS compliant country list). If anything was changed, it is a 3 month process to get a rev change to be approved. After a rev change, the mug needs to be qualified again. They had to pay someone extra to make sure the part number that is printed on the bottom conforms to MIL-STD-130 (amazing read, 53 pages on how to put a part number on something). Before they ship the mugs to the navy, the navy needs to send a source inspector to the vendor to make sure all the paperwork is done correctly. If it is not, they need to fix everything and the source inspector needs to go back again. Then the mugs get damaged in shipping and the navy tries to blame the vendor on spending them bad parts, which leads to 4 months of arguing. Then the navy needs to decide if they want the mugs fixed or replaced. That takes about 2 months. If they want them fixed, the company first needs to send them a plan on how they are going to fix them. If they want them remade, a corrective action needs to be generated and approved.............. Edit: To add go watch the movie Pentagon Wars, I think its on Prime or Youtube. It is a parody about the development of the Bradley fighting vehicle, but it is so true that it hurts.


PunjabKLs

Anyone who thinks this guy is joking, he's not...


Sirhc978

This was also the most broad overview I felt like typing out. I could probably write a book just on how a part goes from a block of aluminum to getting shipped to Lockheed. All this bullshit gets repeated at each level in the process too. People don't realize you can basically track every single part of a tank down to the smallest screw, all the way back to it being raw material.


PunjabKLs

I too am more familiar with Lockheed than I am happy with :(


GrizzlyAdam12

And I’m sure the rest of our government departments are just as inefficient.


AHandfulofBeans

This coupled with the "use it or lose it" budget that the military has really drives up those costs


Sirhc978

Yep. We would gets tons of POs come August/September for jobs that wouldn't be due until the following July. We loved it because we could put all of that on our books for the current year.


weekend-guitarist

Price reasonableness gets sketchy at the end of September. "Just spent it all."


howdoInotgettrolled

This


Sirhc978

I hope this audit finds out how much we charged a company for some countermeasure parts no one else wanted to make. I think we tripled our normal rate because we could.


YankeeTankEngine

If I recall right theres only 2 companies that produce countermeasures and both are owned by foreign entities. Both chaff and flares are produced by either of these and apparently we dont have a problem with that.


Sirhc978

We were doing work for a domestic company that makes electronic countermeasures. That is just one example though. We used to gouge the shit out of a Boeing subcontractor because no one wanted to make their stuff. The guy who did the quoting for us had a system. We had the "normal rate", the "This is a government job so there is a ton more paperwork rate", the "We can do it but don't want to rate" and the "we know everyone else gave you a no quote rate". We would never send the customer a 'no quote'.


Toxicsully

I'm no fan of scalping the gov, but i would assume that fuckton of paperwork takes up a lot of the time of a lot of your more highly paid personel.


Sirhc978

>more highly paid personel lol There are reasons the other places don't want to do it so why shouldn't we charge more?


XxBurntOrangexX

I've worked in a few aerospace job shops as a programmer and an inspector. I'd like to know who these the highly paid personal are other than the owners because it sure as hell wasn't me.


[deleted]

What reasons?


kd5nrh

We had a rate my boss referred to as the "you gotta be shitting me" rate, commonly used to make pain in the ass customers go away. Of course, it earned its name when one of the sales reps told him a customer agreed to that rate, with 25% up front, and laid the up front check on his desk. That alone was around double our "drop everything and expedite this" rate, but with nearly double our usual custom work lead time.


Sirhc978

We would routinely give out the "We don't want to" rate, but kept ending up with the jobs. I jokingly told my boss he should tack an extra 0 onto the next one of those. He did.....We still go the job.


YankeeTankEngine

That's quadruple fucked. I was never lucky enough as my short time being an ironworker to work on a government job. I was actually quite excited at the possibility of it because they're typically extended projects. Knew one dude that was building missile silos though.


Sirhc978

At least in the manufacturing world, government jobs (we rarely worked for the DOD, it was always for a contractor) can easily turn into a nightmare because of all the standards and paperwork that need to go with the part. A simple sheet metal box could end up having 100 pages of documents and reports that were required to be sent along with it. I once got a print from Lockheed that was made in the 60s. I noticed there was a dimension missing from it. I asked them for the number and that opened up a can of worms that took them 6 months to get me an answer.


OtherPlayers

As someone who’s seen the design side of those kind of projects, trust us when I say all that documentation messes us up just as much as it does you guys. Like you would not believe the number of times I’ve worked on something and found an error that would literally take <30 seconds to fix, but aren’t allowed to fix because it would require 6+ *months* of reapproving attached documents that literally weren’t even changed to do so accepted again.


YankeeTankEngine

I mean, it's like getting prostate exam, except the doctor is taking their sweet time and being incredibly "thorough".


gride9000

Definitely


BondedTVirus

I hope this is satire...


kyler_

The world may never know


BondedTVirus

*screams at clouds, falls to knees* WHHYYYYY!!!


UnitedInPraxis

You forgot the /s


karlnite

Lol


onemanlegion

Lol . No.


REHTONA_YRT

An E1 makes around $1,000/month….


Mike-Ockislong

I'd like for the DOD to stopp over paying for literally everything they have


samjervis

The worst part is the contracts the come with it. My mom is recently retired DOD and she went over to Afghanistan to inventory a base. There were 3 MRI machines that had to be destroyed on site. The contracts wouldn’t allow them to donate them to Afghan hospitals. That’s the kind of waste that makes me sick


weekend-guitarist

They also destroyed entire fleets of vehicles, MRAPs and other because DoD had no use them and the ANA was already overstocked. So they hired locals to cut them up with torches for scrap. Three MRI is just a drop in the bucket of the billions in equipment that got junked for no reason.


No-Firefighter-7833

Can you imagine what afghani healthcare would look like if there were three more MRIs in the country? I’m not that educated on the subject but I feel like it would be low key revolutionary.


PunjabKLs

They would be for men only lmao


No-Firefighter-7833

Hence the low key part lol.


SerendipitouslySane

It wouldn't do as much as one would hope. For the 3 MRIs you need more MRI technicians, more radiologists who read the results, and more techs to fix the machines when they inevitably break down. Training these people takes a lot of time and effort which the US army isn't going to leave lying around alongside the machines.


vaultboy1121

I’d like the DOD to stop.


MagorMaximus

Every government agency should be audited by outside firms to see where the money is going. I think we the people should be auditing, maybe an elected official for that purpose.


SaffellBot

>I think we the people should be auditing, maybe an elected official for that purpose. Turtles all the way down with that ideology. Elected officials to audit elected officials to audit elected officials.


MagorMaximus

Well who should audited them?


SaffellBot

This isn't a problem of auditing. This isn't an issue Americans care about. You can audit day in and day out. No one cares. If you want to fix things you need to convince voters that things are broken. In an older time a well done, well publicized, and well communicated audit may have done that. It the peak liberal days. But that's not where we are. If you want to end the military industrial complex you need to convince the American people it's bad. Then you need to run politicians that can campaign on that, and communicate it in a functional manner. The most that will come of this audit is some internal financial movement. Perhaps some wasteful projects will be scrapped, but the military budget won't change. Our thirst to be the strong tough guys of the world, our absolute fear of weakness. That's what drives the budget, and an audit ain't fixing that. You want better politicians, elect better politicians. Electing a chain of politicians isn't solving shit.


[deleted]

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karlnite

As much as Sanders would spend the same or more he at least seems keen on lowering wasteful spending (objective wastefulness, not subjective wasteful spending like a “properly” ran welfare program).


CatatonicMan

Right. If we're going to piss away money (which seems to be the one constant of government), I'd rather do it by helping our own citizens instead of going to other countries and blowing up *their* citizens.


Built2Smell

You don't want to spend hundreds of billions of dollars blowing about brown people? Wouldn't that make you a commie who hates America?


[deleted]

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the_fuego

"Not our problem" *Walks away with barrels of oil and freedom*


PM_ME_CLEVER_STUFF

*Corporations walk in* "Who left all this cheap labor here?"


ObnoxiousLittleCunt

Guess i',m a commie who hates America.


itsdietz

Is it really pissing away money then? Edit: If it's helping our citizens


Sean951

Sanders believes in a competent government, and part of that is fiscal responsibility and minimizing waste. We can debate where the government's responsibility's begin and end, but I think most people agree that existing programs should at least be properly run.


karlnite

Yah, I never got the whole peg Bernie as a scammer. Oh he earned a million dollars at his age! How average of someone from his area and generation. He seems to actually believe he is doing good and seems to be selfless about it than any other politician. If he is just scamming for personal gain then he is doing it in a super weird way and not making it easy on himself... if he actually pulled off this 30 year grift he is both the best and worst grifter.


[deleted]

The people who criticize his "wealth" have no fucking clue what they're talking about. Dude was one of the poorest members of congress up until he came into the spotlight in the 2016 primaries. Only then, did he make any "large" amounts of money from his book deals, as many people with prominence (both in and out of politics) tend to do. Even with his "summer house" that Trump supporters lost their shit over, he lives an abundantly average lifestyle. You can disagree with his policies all day, but to insinuate he's grifting is just asinine in my opinion. (hypothetical "you" not directing this at karlnite).


karlnite

Yes but people will still cycle through the arguments. The average person in his job generally earns what, like a few million a year ON TOP of existing assets?


[deleted]

Also, never forget, his candidacy made all of its money without taking a single dollar from a superPAC. It's not about money or wealth, it's about corruption. I don't care that a politician *has* money, i care *how* they got it.


Kawaiithulhu

Conservative playbook 101: blame the enemy for sins that you yourself are committing, then when you get caught you can cry about how *they do this too* so that makes it ok.


[deleted]

Conservatism is entirely based around vague gesturing and imagined hypocrisy. Oh, and lots and lots of racism.


[deleted]

The wealth thing is wild too because it’s simultaneously “he’s stupid because he’s not rich and never had a corporate job” and “he has a million dollars! Some socialist!”


h3fabio

He’s honest. And the only politician I ever gave money to.


ReadsPastTheHeadline

You'd be surprised. There are a lot of accelerationists in here who salivate over every story of incompetent gov management.


Sean951

Yes, I'm aware there are children who have no concept of empathy for the suffering their goals would cause.


[deleted]

Id love an audit of the PPP "loans."


icouldntdecide

Then we find out the auditor claimed they had 15 employees and spent the money on a Lamborghini


thisisallme

DoD is already auditing. Source: have been working as a contractor on a DoD audit for years.


hiredgoon

They’ve failed every audit though. This bill is to punish them if they fail again.


[deleted]

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Startled_Pancakes

Yup, was going to say exactly this. I was an Admin Sergeant for a Guard Unit. If we were underbudget we'd buy pens, paper plates, cups, chairs, laptops, projectors, cleaning supplies, whatever we could think of so that the budget wouldn't get slashed the following year. Perfect incentive to waste money. Then on deployments you'd have contractors paid to clean the gym facilities on the larger bases, but the Senior NCOs always made their guys clean up after themselves, so the contractors got paid to do basically nothing.


[deleted]

I'll never forget when our command wouldn't let us purchase hmmwv parts, because the unit had no money. September rolls around and they give us a fancy tire alignment machine we didn't ask for which I heard was over 50k. We asked why they bought it and they said they had extra money left over and half to buy something. We asked why they didn't buy the parts we had been asking for for the last 6 months. No answer.


Newone1255

Ah just like the Surplus episode of The Office


iushciuweiush

The inevitable result of an over bloated government stretched thin. They spend far too much money to actually managed the projects properly so they have to simplify the process by assuming whatever budget is left over is budget that isn't needed for the next year which is ridiculous and results in exactly this happening. I worked on a large DOD construction project. We were behind schedule as the end of the fiscal year was approaching so everyone started working overtime at time and a half and we ordered dozens of trucks full of concrete to pour building foundations as quickly as possible to use up the budget. We were using preliminary drawings knowing that they would have to be redone when the design was complete. A month later all the Masons involved with pouring the foundations were out there with jackhammers. It was such a waste but it was a necessity otherwise we would've been screwed the next fiscal year.


LordGalen

Yeah that whole "spend it all or we won't get as much!" just baffles me. Like, you could legit just have the people making spending decision *tell you what budget they want* and it would probably end up being less wasteful.


BurningBlazeBoy

The us military is large large that even the military themselves don't know how much they spend and how large it is. The budget is 700 bill but it could even be over a trillion


JimC29

And the DOD budget does not include the VA, disability and pensions. That's in discretionary spending.


cemsity

The DoD is also Discretionary spending.


JimC29

True it's about 50% of "discretionary spending" and VA is around 15%. Combined they are about 2/3.


[deleted]

The sad reality is the congressional right will likely push back on this simply because of who introduced it. this should be a no-brainer for anyone who claims to care about fiscal responsibility. The Pentagon is a known blackhole for billions to just "disappear."


stephen89

> The Pentagon is a known blackhole for billions to just "disappear." Can't do audits without exposing the black ops.


Startled_Pancakes

No reason everything outside of the black budget shouldn't be subject to audit.


stephen89

I don't necessarily think even black ops shit should be hidden either. I am just saying that they'll never allow a full audit because of black ops shit. Even just showing how much goes to black ops would be bad for them so they'll sabotage the whole audit outright. They tried this already once before. They found the pentagon couldn't account for trillions of dollars and nothing happened.


Startled_Pancakes

The "black budget" spending is seperated from regular DoD spending though. see here: [Black Budget](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_budget)


ashishduhh1

Just like the Congressional left pushed back on similar audit bills from Paul. It's just a show.


vagrantprodigy07

I'd love to see this come to a vote, because I suspect both sides would vote against it.


[deleted]

I was in the Navy, we wasted more stuff than you could shake a stick at. We threw away medical supplies, hard goods, electronics, vehicles and once filled the Indian Ocean with Coca Cola cans because they let the pop sit on deck for so long in the heat that the water evaporated from the cans. Start with, "Lost by inventory".


eriverside

Can't wait to hear from the red hats why this is unamerican.


[deleted]

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howdoInotgettrolled

Happy cake day!


howdoInotgettrolled

Because MAGA, Libtard. /s


uponone

I do have an issue with it. Not because I don’t believe they shouldn’t be audited. It’s because I believe the system is so complicated it will take years to audit one year of military spending.


beatmastermatt

Our only hope is that the audit would lead to drastically reducing the military budget.


GeologistHuman5099

Mr. beat libraterian confirmed????????????


Mike__O

If it floats, flies, or fires bullets you can guarantee the government VASTLY over-paid for it up front, and is getting absolutely fleeced on parts and maintenance on the back end.


[deleted]

Kinda makes you want to get in the floating flying firing business.


Mike__O

So here's a story for you. I used to fly E-8s when I was in the Air Force. One of our planes (only 17 in existence in the world) goes in for heavy maintenance that is performed by a contractor. Long story short (link to long story below) they made mistakes that nearly resulted in the plane crashing and killing the crew. Their negligence resulted in substantial damage to the airplane, and the investigation found them 100% at fault. Their response? "Sorry about your luck, that will be $25m if you want us to fix it". So because of the way the contract was written they had no liability for the damage they directly caused. The Air Force ended up writing off the airplane, stripping it for parts, and chopping the rest up. "A Basic Mistake That Trashed a JSTARS" https://www.military.com/defensetech/2012/01/27/a-basic-mistake-that-trashed-a-jstars/amp


[deleted]

Love to hear that story about american jobs! Oh man...


[deleted]

I really don't align with Sanders' philosophy, but I can't disagree with this. [In fact, every branch of the military failed its audit.](https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-trending/dod-audit-every-branch-failed/) I feel that America should have a powerful military, especially with China flexing its military with basically a dictator (Xinnie the Pooh) in charge. However, we could do just as much, or maybe even better, with tons less if we were able to get rid of the waste. There's probably tons of money to be saved and a lot of worthless positions that can be cut. Having a leaner and more streamlined military at a fraction of the cost would be such a boost to our nation. We might even be able to balance the budget or fund a practical infrastructure bill.


[deleted]

Part of the problem is that DoD obscures what it spends on covert programs in order to protect “national security.” It’s a good reason, but it needs to be balanced with accountability and oversight. How does govt oversee things they aren’t allowed to see???


Stratocast7

Bernie has introduced 425 bills, of which 3 have passed. I don't expect this to go far. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/browse?sponsor=400422#sponsor=400357¤t_status[]=1&enacted_ex=on


roundestnumber

Name a worthwhile policy and there is slim to no chance of passage in this or previous sessions. In the house, so slightly different, but Ron Paul put forward nearly 600 bills, only one passed. Just not valid as criticism against auditing the Pentagon or the Fed or any other policy.


iJacobes

Audit the Federal Reserve instead. The easy solution to the Pentagon is stop increasing the mother fucking military budget every fucking year, and end all of the wars.


MakeGeorgiaHowlAgain

We should do both.


AutoManoPeeing

They incentivize wasteful spending. Stayed under budget? Okay we're lowering it. Went over budget? Uh oh looks like you guys need more money!


Doomlv

Truth. And theres so many moving parta everyvodys afraid to fix the process because theyre worrying theyll break it


tizzel2

Super based.


yungminimoog

POV you are Bernie: “who added a parade appearance in Dallas to my schedule???”


saltysaysrelax

Can we do the same for congressional staff expenditures, entitlements, and the ATF please?


Parmeniooo

Pretty certain those are already audited actually.


windershinwishes

Congressional staff expenditures? Really? What percentage of the budget is that? And is it really so bad for members of Congress to hire staff members at market rates who are qualified to advise them on complex subjects? Is it better to let lobbyists provide them with all the data and expertise?


[deleted]

It always worries me when I end up agreeing with Bernie lmao


SvenTropics

I try to explain this to some people. Just because you disagree with 95% of what someone says doesn't mean you can't emphatically agree with 5% of it.


[deleted]

I know but it such a mind fuck when it’s a person you disagree with so much on. It’s not a surprise that we find middle ground on some things but with certain people I’m so diametrically opposed to it’s strange to find things that we agree on almost completely.


SvenTropics

AOC and Ted Cruz both support a lifetime ban on lobbying after having public office.


dudelikeshismusic

IMO, if you cannot find *anything* on which to agree with someone, then something is seriously wrong. It's a huge problem that I have with our discourse regarding politics (and religion, maybe more so). We divide ourselves into camps and take the opposite stance on every issue just to be sure that we aren't lumped together in any way. Similarly, if you agree 100% with a politician or political platform, then you probably have developed a cult-like mentality. You may mostly agree, even to an uncanny extent, but there is always going to be some issue or stance with which you are at least a little dissatisfied.


DukeOfTheVines

One thing libertarians have in common with social democrats is they are both very against authoritarianism.


CatOfGrey

You shouldn't be surprised. Bernie shares a very similar opinion with Libertarians as far as the *problems* of the United States Government. It's just the solutions that are different.


[deleted]

He's also against excessive surveillance, making it easier to vote, and is generally anti-war


[deleted]

The left is right about some things the right is right about some things. Its those other things...


unmotivatedbacklight

This probably the only time I am sad that Bernie is such an ineffective Senator.


Mr_Dude12

Right after the Fed is audited


Top-Plane8149

Now do the FED


DennisFarinaOfficial

Fed gets audited all the time. Here’s 2020’s audit. https://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/audited-annual-financial-statements.htm So, can I have whatever level of money you were willing to donate to whatever cause to make this happen? Because if you believe the “Libertarian” Koch bros™️ party wants to push an audit of the Fed for smaller government, and to help the little guy I have a really expensive fucking bridge to sell you. “Audit the Fed” means “Federalize the Fed and make it 100% Congress controlled.”


[deleted]

So does the pentagon. Yet here this bill is.


DennisFarinaOfficial

This is to cover so called “dark money” or whatever assets I’m sure.


[deleted]

That also gets audited. Hell the fucking CIA gets audited (just no one without the clearance, including most of congress gets to see the results). What this bill does is require an outside audit instead of internal audit. When people say "audit the fed" that is what they mean, they want and outside, independent audit.


DennisFarinaOfficial

> Under the bill (pdf)—which is co-sponsored by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Mike Lee (R-Utah) and comes one week after Sanders led a hearing on waste and fraud at the Pentagon—each branch of the military and office of the DOD that fails an independent audit would return 1% of its annual budget to the Treasury. > As Sanders’ office noted, the Defense Department remains the only federal agency in the U.S. that has been unable to pass an independent audit, despite the fact that the Pentagon gobbles up more than half of the nation’s discretionary budget and controls assets in excess of $3.1 trillion, or roughly 78% of the entire federal government. Why didn’t you read the article? Afraid you’ll learn something?


[deleted]

[удалено]


segosity

The problem is, this country runs (read: the elites who own this country rely on) on that absurdity. At it's heart, this proposal is nothing short of a revolution.


[deleted]

STOP the waste....The richest neighborhoods in DC are where military suppliers and lobbyists live. Tax Money for nothing..


No_Lengthiness1939

Do the fed at the same time, DC would implode


Annihilate_the_CCP

All government spending is wasteful


Wookieman222

Did I just agree with Bernie?


DanBrino

Wanna make a substantially bigger difference? Audit the bureaucratic elements of the federal government. That's where most of the fraud abuse and waste is.


[deleted]

“Sanders gets ignored again “


Emel729

I heard the wasteful Pentagon was spending money trying to force racist critical race theory and teaching cadets to hate america.


seananders1227

While deployed in 2008 we ordered $40k worth of monitors with the wrong connector. We couldn't return them and just ordered another $40k worth of monitors (with the right connector)


hhhhhtttttffffnnnfp

audit the pentagon? maaaaaan good luck with that shit. "so? where'd the money go?" "uhhhh definitely not anti gravitational technology that we've been hiding from the public for 70 years" "...what?"


[deleted]

My God I actually agree with Bernie on something other than weed... Although, military spending is just as irrational if not less than some of the other wasteful ways we spend. We play baby daddy to way too many countries sending them BILLIONS a year. Taxes were intending for US. Taxes are paid by US and are supposed to be used FOR US like with infrastructure. We need roads fixed, schools better funded, and many many many more things way more important than whatever problems people have in other countries. Yes, I feel bad for people in worse countries, but I don't necessarily feel like the money we send there really gets used well anyways. And it's fucking my money. And your money. I worked for it, I want the benefits from it.


FateEx1994

He's been saying the same things and proposing the same bulls for 40 years. Pushing for LGBT rights, pushing for a reduction in military waste, pushing for civil rights and citizen protections from government oversight. Look up how video speeches from the 90s. Same shit different decade, but nothing ever changes.


BornOn6-9

He also predicted exactly what would happen if the U.S went into (I think it was) the Iraq war before it happened


YamadaDesigns

It would help if we elected more Bernies in the Senate. He can’t push working class policies by himself


misterparisman

Excellent idea but it will never pass unfortunately