The Department of Defense (DoD) has a gargantuan budget, which would presuppose that those paying attention to budgets, would definitely want to determine as to whether or not the monies being allocated to the DoD were being appropriately spent and accounted for. Regrettably, the DoD has failed every audit since 2018, and the bottom line is that the DoD will continue to fail every audit until such a time as this becomes a priority for the DoD to rectify, because as it stands right now, the DoD budget continues to go up, which thereby sends the signal that all is fine and well, and thus it is business as usual.
There are a multitude of ways to get any department to adhere to rules and regulations that are important to this government of, for, and by the people, of which the most basic way is to either provide an incentive or in lieu of such, a punishment, to get those necessary things done. What the DoD does not need is an incentive to successfully complete an audit, because it has an inherent obligation to do that very thing. This signifies that the DoD needs to be punished for its failure to be successfully audited, and the best punishment is to hit the DoD where it really counts, which is in its budget.
Therefore, a fair punishment is to deduct from all contracts and engagements in which money is being spent 1% of that contract price, which will only be returned to the vendor or else to the DoD when the DoD passes a successful audit. The 1% represents just a little bit of belt tightening, but considering that the DoD budget is approximately 1 trillion dollars, this would be a savings to the taxpayers of $10 billion. Additionally, should the DoD continue to fail its audit, that percentage should increase on a yearly basis by .5% until it reaches its maximum at 2.5%.
For all those that don’t understand audits or the point of such, it needs to be recognized that failing an audit, for the DoD, can represent lost, stolen, fraudulent or unaccounted for equipment and supplies, along with contracts that do not conform to industry standards or are structured in a way in which the contractor is given essentially “most favored” treatment, when such is not warranted or necessary.
The fact that the DoD is permitted to exist and to increase its budget year after year, despite its failure to be successfully audited, is a reflection of the need of the American people for a DoD. However, just because the people need a DoD does not mean that the DoD should be permitted to run an operation which cannot with a straight face tell those that pay for the DoD that everything is on the up and up, because those organizations that cannot pass an audit, clearly have systemic problems that need to be addressed forthrightly, and therefore, the sooner that the DoD becomes in compliance with such, the better it will be for all.