Pentagon Flunks Seventh Straight Audit, Can't Fully Account for $824 Billion Budget

As RedState reported on November 12, President-elect Donald Trump announced that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy will lead his newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Trump said at the time:

These two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies - Essential to the 'Save America' movement.

If there's a better example of the urgent need for the Department of Government Efficiency -- headed by Musk and Ramaswamy, no less -- than the one that follows the below link, I'm unaware of what it is.

It was reported on Friday that the Pentagon, the nation's largest government agency, failed its seventh audit in a row, still unable to fully account for its more than $824 billion budget. Worry not, suggested Pentagon officials, who stressed that they're making "good progress" toward a clean audit in 2028.

Two thousand twenty-eight? Something tells me that in the minds of Elon and Vivek, more than four years isn't good enough.

According to reports, the Department of Defense -- led by often-under-fire Secretary Lloyd Austin --technically earned a disclaimer of opinion, meaning it failed to provide sufficient information to auditors to form an accurate opinion.

First question: Why? I'll venture a guess that the answer is because sufficient information was nowhere to be found, which raises the second question: Why not?

The goal is to earn a clean audit, which means an audit finds financial statements are accurate and a qualified opinion says that while there are omissions and concerns, a government agency's finances are '"generally reliable."

In this case, we're talking about more than 824 billion taxpayer dollars. I suspect that Musk and Ramaswamy will be concerned about more than accurate financials, which of course are a must, but even more importantly, the size of the Pentagon's budget and eliminating wasteful and unnecessary spending trumps all. (Pun intended)

Still, Under Secretary of Defense Comptroller and Chief Financial Officer Michael McCord said in a statement that despite the disclaimer of opinion, the Defense Department “has turned a corner in its understanding of the depth and breadth of its challenges.”

This is the last time in this article I'll mention Elon and Vivek, but I bet "turning the corner" isn't good enough, either -- particularly for another four years.

McCord continued:

Momentum is on our side, and throughout the Department there is strong commitment—and belief in our ability—to achieve an unmodified audit opinion.

And at a Friday briefing with reporters, McCord said:

I do not say we failed, as I said, we have about half clean opinions. We have half that are not clean opinions. So if someone had a report card that is half good and half not good, I don’t know that you call the student or the report card a failure. We have a lot of work to do, but I think we’re making progress.

Hmm. We're not talking about a student's report card here, bud. We're talking about close to a trillion dollars and the defense and security of the United States of America.

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Incidentally, the Pentagon has never passed an audit since the agency became legally obligated to conduct them in 2018.

Without mentioning names, as I suggested earlier, I have a feeling that the Defense Department will be held fully accountable for both its expenditures and its initiatives long before 2028.

I think I'll just leave it here, for now.