Last night my husband and I were discussing the cost of war, how the Pentagon and Congress have no earthly idea of what they’ve spent, and how the DoD uses estimates instead of actual costs for their accounting methods.
The more we discussed this, the more angry I got. As a business person, if I kept my books in that manner, I’d be severely penalized when audited. In fact, if the IRS audited books kept in the manner the GAO has suggested, they’d find probably a zillion different ways to penalize me monetarily. So, why should our government be different?
This isn’t to say that estimates aren’t important. Estimates are an important factor in analyzing cost, profitability, tracking changes, etc. In fact there is a whole slew of reasons to use estimates. But, generally estimates are used to compare against actual cost, not as a final accounting figure. From the GAO study, actual cost is not being used by DoD and Congress very often, and as I mentioned yesterday when I initially posted on this, that is poor accounting practices.
The other thing that totally pissed me off is the lack of documentation. If I’m getting audited, and I have no documentation to back up why I’m deducting a particular amount as an expense, I damn well better have documentation, or that amount won’t be allowed. Again, why should our government be treated differently from regular businesses?
The fact is, they shouldn’t.
