World Military Expenditures Drop in 2012--The First Drop Since 1998

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20130415/DEFREG01/304150012/SIPRI-World-Spends-Less-Military

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ZVUGKTUBM wrote:http://www.defensenews.com/article/20130415/DEFREG01/304150012/SIPRI-World-Spends-Less-Military

Military spending could go down even more if the DoD could get its act together and spend some of our tax money on a system to monitor things like this:...and Senators have the nerve to stand up and say with a straight face that the current sequester or other cuts in military spending would jeopardize our national security, oh pleeeeease.

The Department of Waste

This may come as a shock for some of you, but a new report shows that the Department of Defense (DOD) routinely wastes your money by losing or discarding surplus equipment that could be reused. According to a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the DOD lacks significant management controls that would ensure proper reuse of items purchased by the military.
Over the last three years, the Pentagon disposed of $33 billion in excess equipment, of which $4 billion was reported to be in new, unused, or excellent condition. The problem is that DOD units reutilized only $495 million or about 12 percent of those items. The remaining $3.5 billion in items were transferred or donated outside of DOD, sold for pennies on the dollar, or even destroyed.

The DOD’s problems with excess property system are systemic and extensive. In 2002, the DOD continued to sell top-grade chemical protective suits for $3 on the Internet while its own military units were waiting to procure exactly the same suit for $200. In 2003, the DOD sold excess biological laboratory gear for pennies on the dollar.

The GAO slammed the point home by legally purchasing at virtually no cost a score of items from the DOD, including tents, boots and medical supplies. In all, GAO officials paid a little under $3,000 and received items that cost the US taxpayers about $80,000. Facing proof like this, the DOD cannot deny the truth.

http://www.progress.org/2005/tcs182.htm