Did the Pentagon Just Make a $3 Billion Accounting Error—or Did It Do Something Even Worse?
The Pentagon’s “accounting error” will allow President Joe Biden to send an extra $3 billion in military aid to Ukraine without congressional approval. Was this deliberate?
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the Pentagon has overcounted the value of the weapons it sent to Ukraine by at least $3 billion. The Defense Department had cited what newly produced weapons would cost, but Washington has primarily sent Ukraine older excess weapons from U.S. stockpiles.
The Pentagon says this means it has an additional $3 billion to spend on military aid to Ukraine—spending that wouldn't require congressional approval. While Congress has the power to set limits on the value of weapons the president can send using this method, the White House has the authority to choose which weapons to send and how to calculate their value.
This is convenient for Kyiv, which has continued to request assistance from Washington on top of the astronomical amount of aid it has already received.
In March, Max Bergmann of the Center for Strategic and International Studies calculated that President Joe Biden's available Ukraine funding would run out by October or sooner, depending on the intensity of the spring counteroffensive. But Congress—especially the Republican-controlled House—has grown reluctant to hand Ukraine a blank check. Since the beginning of the 118th Congress, lawmakers have pushed to add restrictions and better monitoring of weapons sent to Ukraine. The Pentagon's accounting error frees up more money for the war, available now without any democratic debate.
The timing of this accounting error is suspicious. Senators have been warning that Congress may not agree to a 2023 federal budget that keeps up with inflation, and some House Republicans have suggested cutting aid to Ukraine in order to counteract the rising U.S. debt and to alleviate concerns over accountability and transparency. The government may need to impose across-the-board cuts (otherwise known as sequestration) as it did when Congress failed to agree on deficit-reduction methods 10 years ago.
Back then, the military used overseas contingency operations accounts—emergency funding budgeted separately from the Pentagon budget and immune from sequestration. The current emergency-style Ukraine funding allows the government to circumvent budgetary pressures, avoid getting caught up in issues like omnibus appropriations, and shield the aid from deficit-reduction spending cuts. By reapportioning the newfound $3 billion for Ukraine, the Biden administration could use emergency funding to support Kyiv unabated, even if the rest of the federal budget experiences sweeping cuts.
And if the error isn't deliberate? That would signal major flaws in Pentagon oversight. If around 7.5 percent of the nearly $40 billion the U.S. has committed to Ukraine was accounted for incorrectly, there are likely a litany of other financial miscalculations in the $858 billion military budget.
Whether this $3 billion mistake is a purposeful effort to circumvent Congress or a huge accounting error, it reflects a near-breakdown of the democratic process for military spending.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
Note the mistakes. Note which direction the mistakes go. Do the mistakes always go in one direction? Then that “conspiracy theory” starts to look like tomorrow’s “Ok, it’s happening but…” headline.
White Mike will be by soon to call you ‘paranoid’ for noticing, and then immediately go on to say how J.D. Vance criticizing corporatism is incipient authoritarianism.
Great article, Mike. I appreciate your work, I’m now creating over $35,200 dollars each month simply by doing a simple job online! I do know You currently making a lot of greenbacks online from $28,200 dollars, its simple online operating jobs.
.
.
Just open the link—————————————>>> http://Www.JobsRevenue.Com
I am making a good salary from home $6580-$7065/week , which is amazing under a year ago I was jobless in a horrible economy. I thank God every day I was blessed with these instructions and now it’s my duty to pay it forward and share it with Everyone,
🙂 AND GOOD LUCK.:)
Here is I started.…………>> http://WWW.RICHEPAY.COM
Easily start receiving more than $600 every single day from home in your part time. i made $18781 from this job in my spare time afte my college. easy to do job and its regular income are awesome. no skills needed to do this job all you need to know is how to copy and paste stuff online. join this today by follow details on this page.
.
.
Apply Now Here———————————->>> https://Www.Coins71.Com
Start making cash right now… Get more time with your family by doing jobs that only require for you to have a computer and an internet access and you can have that at your home. Start bringing up to $8012 a month. I’ve started this job and I’ve never been happier and now I am sharing it with you, so you can try it too.
HERE====)>>> https://www.apprichs.com
Reason’s writers are all committed leftist, don’t expect anything different. They are always writing articles criticizing the Republican Senators and Reps, but not one article about the radical leftist Senators and House members.
To call Reason.com a libertarian site anymore is a joke. It used to be, but that changed a couple of years ago.
Did somebody check behind the vette? I think I saw a couple billion under some boxes behind the vette last time I looked in the garage.
What about dick pics?
Yep. Ignore the millions the Biden’s have received to sell Joe’s office for decades now. The whole thing is about a few dick pics of Hunter’s
The timing is simply too coincidental to be anything other than a ploy to keep the weapons flowing in some kind of misguided effort to ‘beat Russia’.
Or perhaps it’s an appropriately guided effort to “help keep a free country with a democratically elected government from being conquered by military force by an autocratic government trying to build an empire and expand their border with NATO countries” rather than your claimed “misguided effort to ‘beat Russia'”.
Are you in favor of Putin’s actions? If so, would you like to live under his, or his hand picked successor’s, rule?
Are you one of those people who would walk down the street with five like minded friends all of whom are large 25 year old males trained in martial arts and when coming upon some wimpy pervert raping an 8 year old child in an alley would tell your friends “We shouldn’t do anything, not our problem – it’s the kid’s problem, they should take care of it”? I’m betting so.
Is that last bit a fantasy of yours?
And if so, are you the victim or the pervert?
Cool story bro.
Need help buying a one-way ticket?
Calling it a democratically elected country after Zalensky banned various political party was the chefs kiss for your parody.
I’m in favor of sending them everything except U.S. troops, as long as Europe pays for it.
“As long as europe pays for it.”
Now that’s funny.
So, just to be clear, you advocate for the government to go around and/or mislead Congress as well as making sure the Pentagon is unaccountable to anyone.
Cool story, fascist.
I have gotten $27346 over the past 4 weeks from working part-time online from residential. I got this work 2 months earlier and in my to start with month without any online association I gotten $20569. Anyone can get this work these days and start making veritable cash online by taking after the illuminating on this location.
Check info here..——>>> UsaBiteCoin.com
A free country where the men were prevented from leaving, so they could be drafted?
“Would you like to live under Putin’s, or his successor’s, rule?”
Ah, the domino theory. Worked out great in Korea and Vietnam. Did you watch the sequels, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya?
My gut likes the idea of stopping Putin. My principles say that keeping out of other peoples’ fights is usually a good idea in the long run. And I for damn sure want our government keeping track of our money and telling us the truth–neither of those things tend to happen when all we get all jingoistic and have to beat _____ whatever the cost, in money, lives, or principles.
What does Ukraine have to with Shrike raping little kids?
Seriously though, your analogy is shit. Conjuring weak strawmen to guilt commenters here will just get you laughed at.
Not really metaphorically, it’s war, the rules of engagement are don’t fire unless fired upon. Confirm the target area is clear of civilians and you are cleared hot.
Slightly OT: We all saw former-fitness-competitor-turned-HK-marketing-manager do a completely unsolicited, full mag dump on her and HK’s shared genital space, right?
Unsure whether ESG, ‘the wall’, or both is responsible.
Interesting. Not that I give a shit, Miller is not my drink of choice, but the biggest problem here is to have a really snotty sounding woman lecturing people… it feels very man hating feminist to me.
Some razor company did the same shit a while back. Granted, I haven’t bought a razor in a decade, but why would you do that? I certainly wouldn’t want to give my money to a company who hates me.
This is a really weird trend. I mean, picking an internet influenza who pretends to be a little girl after getting a sex change or whatever is just fucking asinine, and dipping toes in a really idiotic controversy. It was bad, but this old school feminist misandry stuff isn’t that culture war. It’s just bigoted and tone deaf.
tone deaf
And insane, utterly. It was like every “that was out of left field”, “that escalated quickly” and “Dude, just stop” meme rolled into one. Even if Miller Lite’s message was a completely uncontroversial, “buy our beer”, the overlap between Miller Lite drinkers and HK owners is a bit like the overlap between Dollar Store customers and Mercedez Benz owners. I’m sure there are people out there buying both, I don’t think they’re a significant enough portion of the customer base for HK to cater to them, especially on such a woke/nonsense issue. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Miller-Lite-drinking-MP5-owning-anti-objectification-of-women demographic included precisely zero people. Especially given that HK, and most big name gun manufacturers, weren’t big on gun bunnies to begin with.
Or, you know, use the 3 billion to keep making payments on the national debt, since that’s higher priority.
That’s a good one.
If they’re sending already stockpiled ammunition and equipment , there may not actually be any extra cash freed up to put toward the debt.
Got to spend whatever it takes to protect sovereign borders. Just not our borders.
Biden does this kind of stuff all the time. The 14th amendment allows him to ignore the debt ceiling, the HEROES Act allows him to cancel student debt enmass, his wife was killed by a drunk driver, he was arrested protesting civil rights. Changing the ledger to give Ukraine an extra $3 billion is honest by comparison.
Most of his lies are outrageous, but saying his wife was killed by a drunk driver when she is obviously alive is just…weird. What was he hoping to gain with that? A reintroduction of Prohibition??
Referring to his first wife. The guy wasn’t even close to drunk.
We’re at the ‘implausible denial’ stage of the revolution, where they still feel some lingering need to deny their crimes, but, because they think there’s nothing we can do about it anyway, don’t feel any need to make the denial plausible.
If anything, the fact that the denials are obvious bullshit just makes it easier for them to sort out the supporters who still have some residual sense of right and wrong, and thus might defect later as things get worse, from the ones who are all in right to the end.
Soon we’ll reach the point where they shed the need to justify themselves, and just openly brag about their crimes.
https://twitter.com/LeighWolf/status/1659622021024686080?t=r002G9urUO3qm3iKiSDkyg&s=19
The flag draped over the coffins of our fallen heroes has been desecrated then hung from the side of the @HRC building in DC to make a cheap political point.
Hateful and disrespectful.
[The stars represent] The number of states that they claim have insufficient lgbt laws.
ヘルキャット @hellkat_ · 2h Omg so unpatriotic! And you wouldn’t believe it but I’ve also seen tons of people desecrating the flag by making it BLACK but with one BLUE line across it. So disrespectful! Sad for our country.
Somebody doesn’t understand what the word “desecrate” means.
Simply discoloring the flag isn’t desecration. Discoloring it to honor the dead is literally an honorary action, even if you don’t agree that the specific dead deserve honor* or deserve honor in that fashion. This offensive display invokes the flag in full color and nearly full form specifically to disparage the states represented by the stars. The flag is intentionally being used as an insult. If it were honoring only the states it felt should be honored, I could more understand but, even then, the Federal Government shouldn’t be choosing which states are deserving of a star and which aren’t, especially over such a narrow political issue. Specifically insulting and divisive. *That* is desecration.
*A position which I have defended face-to-face in the past. When Charles Joseph “Joe” Gliniewicz radioed in that he was pursuing three suspects and was found alone, with a bullet in his chest, one missing from his gun and no bullet hole in his uniform or ballistic vest (which he was wearing)., I opposed the flying of the “Blue Line” flag without knowledge of what would follow.
There’s certainly room to consider the blue line flag desecration. If one views policing as tyranny, considering it desecration makes sense.
You’re completely correct that the intent, the meaning, is what matters.
For example, one instance where there’s room for disagreement (though I am certainly correct), is when they did the American flag in blue and yellow to honor Ukraine. Worse, they held it up on the capitol like that. To me that was desecration.
And this instance is also desecration, though a bit more clearly because it is intended to literally insult certain states.
If one views policing as tyranny, considering it desecration makes sense.
I’d say the Ukrainian flag still meets the ‘insult’ criteria based on the unelected bureacrats picking sides in a conflict that doesn’t involve Americans or even allies. I’d still think the flag is hideous if I saw it on someone’s back window, but I wouldn’t say they were specifically insulting someone by doing it. At least not necessarily any more than Bubba with an American flag and the Stars and Bars up in his basement where he drinks beer and watches NASCAR.
Admittedly still a bit fuzzy but I think the lynchpin, without getting too litigious, is actual malice and, even then, there’s a window where the malice constitutes desecration rather than just broad/general/blind malice. To wit, posting “OMG, blue line flags everywhere!” as snark on Twitter ain’t it unless you’re actually taking fire and, even then, WTF are you doing posting about flags on Twitter in the middle of a firefight?
I’d say the Ukrainian flag
Amero-Ukranian flag that is.
Given that the majority of the equipment being sent is outdated, almost certainly not going to be used by the US military & was incurring expenses to keep it in storage – is it actually a cost benefit to the government to get rid of this equipment & it actually has a negative valuation & is freeing up funds for our military to use in more beneficial ways?
Is this new neocon talking point?
It’s not happening.
OK it is happening but there’s a damn good reason.
Actually it’s happening and it’s awesome.
Sounds like the Iraq War. Use up the surplus weapons before they age out, so our buddies who own defense companies can get new contracts.
They’ve got to go now! Because when they’re gone, they’re gone!
I’ll consider that spin if we can declare you old and outdated equipment, then ship you to the front line
God, whoever came up with this stupid talking point has obviously never worn the uniform. A good portion of artillery rounds do not become outdated. In fact, for most artillery missions volume is more important than pin point accuracy. And they don’t exactly have a shelf life either. We were using 155 mm shells produced during Vietnam in Iraq in 2003 and Afghanistan. Accurate artillery (which is kinda an oxymoron) requires you to know where your tube is, and where the round is going, both of which are easily done with GPS today. The round itself is not overly complex. Even the proximity detector fuses are not new technology (been in use since WWII with some refinements) and are easily replaced on older shells (the fuses aren’t inserted until ready for use anyhow). As for smart bombs, they are predominantly regular gravity bombs with a guidance system and fins attached, i.e. the only difference between a smart bomb and a ‘dumb’ bomb is the addition of a bolted on guidance system. The AT-4 is a single use disposable rocket, the technology is basically unchanged from the early LAW rockets of Vietnam vintage (which we also still use). The Javelin missile system is a newer system but has been in production for 20 years. The shit we’re sending Ukraine is not state of the art, but neither is the stuff we’re going to replace it with. HE artillery rounds have changed very little since WWI. The biggest change is the fuse, which are easily replaced. Yes, the Army is fielding so called smart artillery rounds, but they’re for specific purposes, and generally not needed, or even desirable for the vast majority of artillery missions. The same with most 120 mm tank rounds, the vast majority are not new, and don’t have a shelf life. The smart part of tank fire is the tank itself, not the round, it’s the sighting system. The idea that we’re sending out obsolete weapons to be replaced with more modern weapons when the vast majority of what we’ve sent is artillery, shoulder fired rockets and such is fucking imbecilic talk that anyone who has any familiarity with the military would find it laughable. The secret to the Paladin’s accuracy is it’s fire control system, not the artillery round itself. Knowing where you’re at and knowing where you want it to go is the entire secret to accurate artillery.
You know who else was an artillery officer?
Not sure anyone is still reading this thread, so I’ll start the answer list:
1. Napolean
2. Alexander Hamilton
3. My high school math teacher
Baron von Münchhausen?
Am I getting closer?
I guess we should appreciate that our rulers still bother with even feeble excuses for shit they decide to do.
BTW, if you believe in this “mistake” you are either a complete idiot or a Democratic neocon shill. Or both.
They did it again…
https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/1659623350421864477?t=7lQ9W_datzckXUD6W7324g&s=19
2015: Jordan Neely kidnaps 7 year old
2019: Jordan Neely attacks an old man
2021: Jordan Neely attacks 67 year old woman and breaks her nose
2023: Gold and ivory casket with public figures eulogizing him
[Pics]
This is about as much of a “mistake” as the Census bureau ‘accidentally’ getting their count wrong, and giving the Democrats 5 extra seats in the House.
Proof Biden is a lying fool and a lying-fool magnet, from one of the most recent defections from his fan club, Washington Post, about his great handling of the economy:
“The $1.7 trillion reduction was caused by previously planned expiration of COVID spending. Biden’s actions raised, rather than lowered, the deficit.
This misleading claim has been repeated (& debunked) so often the Washington Post gave it a Bottomless Pinocchio rating.
Nobody will ever know because it’s ‘classified’. Probably the biggest reason so much money goes through the ‘classified’ agencies. Public scrutiny must not be allowed!
The deep state/military industrial complex doing what they do best.
Philosophically, as libertarians, do we support the hammer and sickle, Lenin mummy worshipers? Or the nation fighting for its survival?
That’s separate from the topic of who’s funding Ukraine’s defense.
To be fair those weapons have pretty much zero value for the US military. They are only valuable to people fighting obsolete militaries who can’t get better stuff. So their real value is however much the people fighting obsolete armies want to pay for it. And since the Ukrainians aren’t paying for this stuff, the value is obviously zero.
I don’t usually reply to trolls but I’ll give it one try.
155 mm artillery shells are the mainstay of our current arsenal
Soldier medic gave the reply above about turning dumb artillery shells into precision weapons with a bolt on guidance system.
Himars Missiles are our most advanced rocket artillery
M1 Abrams tanks are our most modern effective Tank
The AT 4is a modern antitank guided missile.
Switchblade is our latest kamikaze drone.
I could go on and on with javelin, harm, harpoon, Claymore, ghost, nod’s etc.
Yes, M113 vehicles and tow missiles are indeed 70s technology.
Whichever leftist gave you the talking point that we are sending outdated Arms is completely wrong
Odd Yellen is screaming about running out of money, but we still have billions to send to Ukraine. Yellen will solve this, firing up the printing presses while over at the Fed Powell will keep raising interest rates. What could go wrong?
The most adult administration ever! LOL!
Yellen doesn’t control the presses (those are run by the Federal Reserve, who’s supposedly trying to unwind the 120x growth in their balance sheet over the last 14 years), but she could theoretically “mint the coin”, and nullify virtually any capability of any part of the government to get inflation under control for the forseeable future. Hopefully even she isn’t stupid enough to do it, but it is technically within the bounds of the law and the US Constitution according to most experts.
How the Fed hopes to reduce their balance sheet (mostly backed by US Treasury debt) while the US government continues to borrow $1Trillion or so per year into eternity is a question that I’ve yet to see a convincing answer for. It would seem like either they need to find a secondary-market purchaser for $Trillions of bonds which are virtually guaranteed to drop in value in the near-mid term unless they can be held to maturity (in exchange for a fairly meager ROI), or the Treasury would need to actually redeem those bonds for face value without borrowing the money to do so (something which would require a real-time budget surplus to actually accomplish).
Changing the basis from replacement market value to cost is not a mistake; it is a fraud.
Government agencies get to do a lot of things which would lead to criminal charges when done by private citizens. Shady accounting practices are the least of it, really.
I’m not opposed to cutting aid to Ukraine, since in terms of how to address what’s happening there, the menu has no “good” options. Spending $100Billion delay the inevitable just because it’ll wear down some of Putin’s resources in the process is at best a callow, wasteful, and ultimately futile response (and at worst risks escalating into WW3) which seems like its three main effects are to placate a “just do something” constituency who are (as with most issues) happy to conflate motion with “progress”, making room in the armories of the U.S. Military for new supplies of certain consumable weapons/ammunition, and likely increasing the body count on both sides in the fighting in Ukraine.
That said, cutting back on the unspent portion of the current appropriation for aid to Ukraine as a means of addressing the growing US soverign debt is like a family switching from Folgers or Maxwell House to generic coffee as a means of addressing $100k in accumulated credit card debt. If anyone in DC is actually serious about addressing the debt, then they need to at least become willing to put the 60-70% of all government spending that’s currently “off limits” into the discussion. When the annual deficit is larger than the entirety of “discretionary” government spending, just picking around the edges of that subset is pissing into the wind; especially when the combination of rising interest rates (which anyone half aware should expect to go higher as the Fed tries to deal with the inflation resulting from the explosion of the money supply since 2009, especially during the pandemic), expiring short-term bonds, and seemingly permanent $Trillion deficits will be increasing the cost of servicing the debt which they refuse to stop adding to; when that cost grows to the point where it consumes 100% of current-account revenues (which on the current path, it will at some point), then it gets hard to see where even the mighty 14th Amendment will stop people outside of the DC beltway from questioning the “full faith and credit of the United States”