[url=http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/18/us-usa-pentagon-waste-specialreport-idUSBRE9AH0LQ20131118]Reuters Special Report:[/url] [quote]In its investigation, Reuters has found that the Pentagon is largely incapable of keeping track of its vast stores of weapons, ammunition and other supplies; thus it continues to spend money on new supplies it doesn't need and on storing others long out of date. It has amassed a backlog of more than half a trillion dollars in unaudited contracts with outside vendors; how much of that money paid for actual goods and services delivered isn't known. And it repeatedly falls prey to fraud and theft that can go undiscovered for years, often eventually detected by external law enforcement agencies. The consequences aren't only financial; bad bookkeeping can affect the nation's defense. In one example of many, the Army lost track of $5.8 billion of supplies between 2003 and 2011 as it shuffled equipment between reserve and regular units. Affected units "may experience equipment shortages that could hinder their ability to train soldiers and respond to emergencies," the Pentagon inspector general said in a September 2012 report. Because of its persistent inability to tally its accounts, the Pentagon is the only federal agency that has not complied with a law that requires annual audits of all government departments. That means that the $8.5 trillion in taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon since 1996, the first year it was supposed to be audited, has never been accounted for. That sum exceeds the value of China's economic output last year.[/quote] Thanks to its complete lack of accounting ability, the Pentagon continues to buy things it already has too much of. It also wastes huge amounts of money keeping old and outdated munitions; more than 1/3 of the munitions at weapons stores are obsolete. It spends billions implementing systems that don't work, then billions more trying to repair them. The DoD has more signed more than $3 trillion in contracts, with no way to know if they're overpaying or if it isn't even being spent. Hilariously, the Pentagon has spent tens of billions of dollars trying to upgrade to more efficient, audit-ready technology, but many have failed or been scrapped, only adding to the waste. [b]tl;dr the Pentagon is a vacuum cleaner that sucks up money and converts it into nothing[/b]