President-elect Donald J. Trump. Please appoint a Secretary of Defense who will be a wonk to eliminate waste in spending the DoD budget you plan to increase! Here is why you NEED to do this.
"With $8.5 Trillion Unaccounted for, Why Should Congress Increase the Defense Budget?"
By Jacqueline Leo and Brianna Ehley, March 19, 2015
YOU REALLY NEED TO READ THIS ARTICLE ON HOW THE DoD BUDGET IS SPENT.
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/03/19/85-Trillion-Unaccounted-Should-Congress-Increase-Defense-Budget
by Taboolaby Taboola
"The U.S. military is good at fighting wars, but it sucks at managing money. Partly because of its convoluted bookkeeping systems, $8.5 trillion—yes, trillion—taxpayer dollars doled out by Congress since 1996 has never been accounted for.
That was also the first year that Congress passed a law requiring the Defense Department to be audited, which it has failed to do. In 2009, Congress passed another law requiring the DOD to be audit-ready by 2017. After spending—no wasting—billions on failed accounting software, the department is likely to miss that deadline, too."
"DoD report: $58 billion wasted in canceled weapons", By Jamie McIntyre • 10/26/16 8:45 AM
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/dod-report-58-billion-wasted-in-canceled-weapons/article/2605600
"Here’s How the Military Wasted Your Money in 2014, New year, old problems", by MATTHEW GAULT
"The U.S. Congress approved $581 billion in military spending for 2014. That number includes the Pentagon’s base budget plus the Overseas Contingency Operations fund that pays for America’s various wars.
Last year, the Pentagon spent $614 billion. So the military is saving money. Which makes sense. Major combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have ended. Thousands of troops are coming home.
Oh—and automatic “sequestration” budget cuts had an effect, as well.
But none of that stopped the Defense Department from blowing a lot of money on pointless junk. And frustratingly, the list of major military waste in 2014 looks a lot like the same list from 2013."
https://warisboring.com/heres-how-the-military-wasted-your-money-in-2014-6837137e3dc2
Example: Ashton Carter IS a "wonk" Secretary of Defense. Ashton Carter came out of a bureaucracy of "Defense Acquisition" as we call it, leading contracting professionals to get the most out of every tax dollar to win a fight against wasted funds EVERY DAY. Points for a wonk like Carter:
#1 We do not need a Secretary of Defense to run the war. The military minds in DoD can run the war.
#2 We DO need someone who can require effective control and use of the billions and billions of Tax dollars handed to the military by Congress to fight wars, BUT ALSO TO MAINTAIN EQUIPMENT AND PAY SALARIES WHICH IS MORE THAN HALF OF DoD EXPENSES.
#3 Ashton Carter created a MANTRA "get more with less" while he led the Defense Acquisition workforce. The mantra get more for less saved millions, maybe more in contracts we wrote even while he was against budget cuts on DoD.
I found this article on Ashton Carter since some military professionals have judge him.
"Can a wonk run a war?", Ash Carter is a scholar, a bureaucrat — and the opposite of Chuck Hagel.
By Michael Crowley
12/02/14 09:53 PM EST
Updated 12/03/14 01:50 PM EST
Politico Magazine
Michael wrote:
"“He is brilliant and driven, a policy wonk equally adept at mastering the bureaucracy,” says a former White House official. “He’s also arrogant and doesn’t suffer fools gladly.”"
On sequestration: "On sequestration Carter is a critic of sequestration who’s likely to continue the department’s policy of requesting more funding than allowed under the spending caps put in place under the Budget Control Act of 2011. “Sequester was never intended to be implemented, and is very disruptive because it gives us very little managerial flexibility in where we take budget adjustments this year,” he said during a trip last year to the Asia-Pacific region."
"wonk"
wäNGk/
nounNorth Americaninformalderogatory
noun: wonk; plural noun: wonks
a studious or hardworking person.
"any kid with an interest in science was a wonk"
a person who takes an excessive interest in minor details of political policy.
"he is a policy wonk in tune with a younger generation of voters"
Be aware! Beware!
