On Thursday, the House held a joint Oversight subcommittee hearing looking into the financial management of the Department of Defense (DoD). The DoD’s budget constituted 15 percent of total government spending and half of discretionary spending but failed its previous five audits. The hearing exposing the extraordinary extent of the failure to report spending did not receive any live coverage on CNN or MSNBC, leaving us to wonder if the broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) will also skip it.
John Tenaglia, the Principal Director of Defense Pricing and Contracting for the DoD, Brett Mansfield, Deputy Inspector General for Audits and DoD Inspector General, and Asif Khan, Director of Financial Management and Assurance for the U.S Government Accountability Office, testified on behalf of the DoD. Representative Glenn Grothman chaired the hearing, calling the DoD’s recorded spending an “extravagant game of hide and seek.”
“DoD was unable provide auditors with an accurate accounting of more than 61 percent of its $3.5 billion in assets,” Grothman began. “The goal for today’s hearing is understanding what prevents the Pentagon from being able to present a clean audit like every other agency.”
He referred to numerous instances of waste, including the DoD’s 549-million-dollar purchase of cargo aircraft that they subsequently scrapped for being unsafe and unreliable and the $10,000 allotted for toilet seats on cargo planes.
Clay Higgins (R-LA) stated the “most ravenous leviathan of our government that devours our people’s wealth is the Department of Defense, the Pentagon.” He explained how corporations unable to pass an audit never received money, yet the DoD expected ever-increasing finances despite repeatedly failing its audits.
When pressed, the DoD representatives admitted the DOD was unlikely to pass an audit until 2028. Khan said the problem was due to antiquated systems and a workforce unable to work the systems.
“We know that the problem is that we have not modernized,” Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (R-T) said. “What is the problem with modernizing? Why can't we, because it's not for lack of resources.”
The DoD representatives explained that they used 400 separate financial management systems that did not communicate with one another, of which not one functioned adequately. Due to this lack of coordination and competency, the DoD could not account for 61 percent of its $3.5 trillion-worth of assets. 
Bryan Donalds (R-FL) called this a “complete disregard for the fiscal sanity at the Department of Defense,” Crockett said it was a “ridiculous amount of waste,” and Virginia Foxx (R-NC) said it made her blood boil to think about. All Republican Representatives and most Democratic Representatives called for immediate reform.
Most of the hearing consisted of bipartisan disdain for the DoD’s extravagant spending, but Katie Porter (R-CA) blamed Republicans, despite Republicans leading the effort to curb spending, and theatrically held up a large jeopardy board titled “JeporDoD.” Under the “enablers” category, Porter listed Former President Trump and Mitch McConnell.
We shall see what angle mainstream media takes on the hearing, if at all. Perhaps, they will focus on the DoD’s failure to keep track of money and the combined efforts of representatives to hold them accountable, or perhaps they will side with Porter and attempt to use the hearing to alienate voters from the Republican Party.
