In a release from Bernie Sanders’ office environment, a statement announcing a bipartisan Senate thrust to audit armed service paying.
WASHINGTON, June 21 – As the the latest personal debt ceiling deal amplified navy spending to $886 billion for fiscal 12 months 2024, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), along with Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), right now launched laws that would require the Department of Defense (DOD) to eventually move a full, independent audit in fiscal 12 months 2024. If enacted, the Audit the Pentagon Act of 2023 would involve any DOD element that fails to finish a clear audit belief to return one per cent of its budget to the Treasury for deficit reduction.
“The Pentagon and the armed service industrial sophisticated have been plagued by a substantial quantity of waste, fraud, and fiscal mismanagement for many years. That is certainly unacceptable,” said Sanders. “If we are really serious about shelling out taxpayer dollars sensibly and proficiently, we have got to stop the absurdity of the Pentagon getting the only company in the federal federal government that has hardly ever handed an independent audit.”
“From buying $14,000 rest room seats to dropping observe of warehouses entire of spare parts, the Section of Defense has been plagued by wasteful paying out for decades. Each dollar the Pentagon squanders is a greenback not made use of to guidance service users, bolster countrywide stability or strengthen military services readiness,” Grassley reported. “The Department of Protection must have to fulfill the exact same once-a-year auditing requirements as each other agency.”
“Taxpayers simply cannot maintain writing blank checks – they have earned extensive-overdue transparency from the Pentagon about wasteful protection shelling out,” Wyden explained. “If the Division of Defense cannot conduct a cleanse audit, as required by law, Congress need to impose tough fiscal outcomes to maintain the Pentagon accountable for mismanaging taxpayer dollars.”