Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/11/29/5x-annual-us-gdp.html
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Same as it ever was…
https://www.npr.org/2011/01/17/132942244/ikes-warning-of-military-expansion-50-years-later
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The computer system in the Pentagon containing the missing military’s black ops expenditures was mysteriously in the same location of the supposed airliner missile that hit the Pentagon on 911.
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Weaponized accounting.
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The Taxed Enough Already Party?
So when can we all agree that this is just a sick joke?
The entire economy is a fraud, bent on servicing war and finance. This is exactly what Lenin and Luxemburg said was gonna happen a hundred years ago. They are killing the planet, and we are running out of time.
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But we can’t afford universal healthcare, free or lower cost public education, low and moderate income housing…
Hey! I know what’ll work. Another tax cut for the wealthiest!
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The absurdity of all the “defense” expenditures is that very little of it goes to the people who actually risk their lives in the unnecessary wars we fight for foreign markets and resources and defense spending excuses.
Conservatives like to pretend defunding the military means defunding soldiers, but the soldiers are getting scraps already.
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“The normally obscure Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board sets the accounting standards for all federal agencies. Earlier this year, the board proposed a new guideline saying that agencies that operate classified programs should be permitted to falsify figures in financial statements and shift the accounting of funds to conceal the agency’s classified operations.”
I get accounting is boring, but the headline “U.S. government decides its ok to lie about how tax dollars are spent” seems like it should be a big story.
Why aren’t all of the small government conservatives on this?
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War Games: the only winning move is not to play.
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$21 trillion, Ahh, that’s nothing…
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Correction: HUD had only $350 billion in undocumented expendatures. The DOD had $21 trillion. Cory misread the original article back in January. Both I and another commenter pointed out his mistake. He failed to correct or update his original post.
Now, eleven months later, he perpetuates the same mistake. Once is carelessness. Twice is reckless disregard for little things like truth and accuracy.
(ETA: an now its silently half corrected, “$350 million” where it should be billion)
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Three Step Plan:
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Cancel all Military expenditures except salary for men & women who serve.
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EVERYTHING ELSE HAS TO GO THROUGH CONGRESS, ITEM BY ITEM, LINE BY LINE.
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Give the Pentagon nothing – NOTHING – until they can account for what they’ve spent and what they will spend.
I’m sick and tired of living in a country with 6,600 nukes but privatized healthcare.
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Trump was sent to DC to spank them.
Instead he and the Republicans gave them all our money.
Was this a plan? Probably not. More likely Trump was chumped by bad ass con men much superior to himself.
AFAICT, this is the same exact information that came out last year (including the $21 trillion in adjustments), and continues to have the same exact problem: “adjustments” of the books aren’t spending. You especially can’t add up the absolute value of the adjustments. This isn’t like, one massive set of books. They’re layered. A squadron keeps tabs on their spending, and passes their books up to the group. Which has it’s own books, and passes them up to the wing, then to the numbered air force, then major command, then to the department. It gets even more complicated when you some organizations paying other organizations within a department. Why? Example: logistics squadron buys a bunch of supplies, then “sells” it to other squadrons in the wing. Money gets moved around on the books, so that the logistics squadron has the money to buy the notepads and pens and all the other random crap an organization needs. But it wasn’t money budgeted to the logistics squadron, because they’re not the user.
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The same ones who’ve been gulling the Republican base since the Southern Strategy. The only difference here is that Il Douche doesn’t use dog whistles like they wish they didn’t have to. As long as it’s bringing in those white male “independent” voters with penis anxiety they’re good with it.
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I almost think it would be more rhetorically effective to draw a parallel to the unaccountability of the Fed instead of HUD, as they’re more similarly absurd.
“As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world,”
https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/the-fed-audit
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What a friend we have in Congress
Who will guard our every shore
Spends three quarters of our taxes
Getting ready for a war
Guns must make our coast line bristle,
And we have to fill the sky
Full of planes and guided missiles
They’ll be paid for by and by.
Have you noticed all the progress
In our mighty airborne fleet?
By the time a plane’s adopted
It’s already obsolete.
There’s no factory profit brother
And we have to do or die.
One improvement then another,
They’ll be paid for by and by.
Modern bombs are sure to carry
Loads of glory joy and thrill!
What a privilege to bury
All the dead our money kills.
Never mind the widow’s weeping.
Disgregard the orphan’s cry.
When God wakes the dead and sleeping,
They’ll be paid for by and by
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