More Than One Trillion Dollars in Defense Spending Is Unaccounted For

by Alex Gauthier, IVN
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The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has uncovered trillions of taxpayer dollars remain unaccounted for. The Department of Defense has repeatedly received failing grades in federal accounting transparency and accountability. Likewise, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Agriculture’s Forestry Service, and the IRS also failed the GAO’s assessments.

In 2003, Inspector General to the Department of Defense revealed that $1 trillion had essentially disappeared along with 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, and 36 Javelin missiles. Oops!

The United States’ ventures in Afghanistan and Iraq have contributed significantly to the trillions of missing and unaccounted for taxpayer dollars. Twenty billion dollars were shipped to help support the reconstruction of Iraq, most of it was never seen again. Waste and fraud on the part of war contractors has cost up to $60 billion in the span of 2002 to 2011.

Article 1, Section 9 of the United States Constitution reads:

“No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.”

At what point does the disparity of missing taxpayer funds violate Section 9?

Source: MastersInAccounting.org