A retired admiral complains that the Department of Defense has not held a press briefing in over 300 days, leaving the public in the dark about how they are spending some $700 billion in taxpayer money. Retired Admiral James Stavridis, April 16, 2019, Time Magazine, argues that the Pentagon needs the press to convey their message in showcasing U.S. military power and “to be cautious and judicious in wielding the tremendous power they hold.”
Even after failing a financial audit for the first time and failing to explain its recent expenditures, the Pentagon had the chutzpah to ask for an increase in the budget from $716 billion to $750 billion. The F35 Joint Strike Fighter program stands out as an instance of poor accountability and transparency, over 10 years behind schedule and running well over projected costs. (The Hill, April 16, 2019, by Mike Palicz of Americans for Tax Reform)
Matt Taibbi, in Rolling Stone, January 16, 2019, is concerned that a obscure federal agency, the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board has made it more difficult to establish accountability and transparency. New guidelines allow agencies a legal avenue to spend money on national security in secret. “The new guidance,” he writes, “‘SFFAS 56 – CLASSIFIED ACTIVITIES’ permits government agencies to ‘modify’ public financial statements and move expenditures from one line item to another. It also expressly allows federal agencies to refrain from telling taxpayers if and when public financial statements have been altered.”