Althouse: "Congress is not looking forward to having to spend billions of our money to make up for billions of their money that we can't account for, and can't seem to find."

June 13, 2011

"Congress is not looking forward to having to spend billions of our money to make up for billions of their money that we can't account for, and can't seem to find."

The money seems to be somewhere in Iraq.

27 comments:

Ralph L said...: DoD needs a ledger account for "bribes paid."; 6/13/11, 3:38 PM
roesch-voltaire said...: Old news this waste and fraud that surfaces every now and then to remind us of the many things that went wrong in Iraq because of no bid contacts, rampant corruption and our hubris.; 6/13/11, 3:39 PM
Original Mike said...: At least we won. It would suck even more if we had lost.; 6/13/11, 3:43 PM
The Drill SGT said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/13/11, 3:44 PM
The Drill SGT said...: LOL,

Obviously they operated on a different basis than that which the Army Finance Offices do when we used to do cash payrolls.

40 years ago in Nam, the used to pay in cash. (Military Payment Script, (MPC) (e.g. monopoly money)

anyway, I was in a 400 man Headquarters Company and used to assist the Cdr in pay duties each month. He'd sign for about $200,000 in 20 dollar MPC bills. We'd take the Earning statements of each soldier (400) and parcel out 200,000 across those 400 accounts and it had to balance, else "He" was out the money. Needless to say he counted well.

Me, not as well, but I didn't want to be there all night either...

times change; 6/13/11, 3:45 PM
David said...: Original Mike said...
At least we won. It would suck even more if we had lost.

War's not over, Mike. We thought it was over once before.; 6/13/11, 3:48 PM
mariner said...: Whaddaya mean "billions of their money"?

It's all our money.; 6/13/11, 3:50 PM
David said...: How about we apply this standard to the Department of Agriculture too?; 6/13/11, 3:50 PM
Scott M said...: You know if we'd lost here in Vietnam, I think it might've driven us crazy. Y'know, as a country. But we didn't.

Edward Blake; 6/13/11, 3:51 PM
DADvocate said...: "Our money," "their money?" I think it's all "our money." They gave it away for reconstruction but it all came and is still coming from us.; 6/13/11, 3:52 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: garage ties this post to Bush in 3.. 2.. 1.; 6/13/11, 3:53 PM
edutcher said...: Ya wanna find 6 bil?

Try looking under all those orange signs around the country?

roesch-voltaire said...

Old news this waste and fraud that surfaces every now and then to remind us of the many things that went wrong in Iraq because of no bid contacts, rampant corruption and our hubris.

This, of course, in contrast to Libya and Yemen.; 6/13/11, 3:56 PM
Anonymous said...: After they do that accounting, they can start in on TARP and Porkulus. I thought TARP was for banks.

http://dca.lacounty.gov/law11HomeownersRelief.html; 6/13/11, 3:57 PM
bgates said...: Congress is not looking forward to having to spend billions of our money

And Charlie Sheen isn't looking forward to diving into a pool filled with cocaine and 20-year-old Russian hookers.

Yet somehow it keeps happening.; 6/13/11, 4:05 PM
mccullough said...: O for the days when we merely wasted $6 billion. There's a very good chance that whoever took it put it to much better use than our government would have.; 6/13/11, 4:07 PM
The Drill SGT said...: Congress is not looking forward to having to spend billions of our money

and circumstances are preventing OJ from his worldwide search of golf courses looking for the one armed man.; 6/13/11, 4:11 PM
James said...: Where's Garage....

In six months Scott Walker turned a $3 billion budget deficit into a $300 million surplus.
http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/123763069.html

Madison -- The two-year budget proposal coming before lawmakers this week would leave the state with an estimated $300 million surplus in the following budget, according to new figures released Monday.

The Legislature’s nonpartisan budget office found that 2011-’13 budget bill would bring the state’s tax revenues and spending commitments into balance for the first time in more than a decade.

The Legislative Fiscal Bureau also found that the budget bill would cut taxes by a net amount of $23.6 million over the next two years. But state fees would increase by $111.3 million, with most of that increase coming from an annual boost of 5.5% expected for tuition in the University of Wisconsin System expected over each of the next two years.; 6/13/11, 4:21 PM
Phil 314 said...: I'm not happy with it either, but Henry Waxman is not the guy I want asking the questions.; 6/13/11, 4:33 PM
Original Mike said...: "War's not over, Mike. We thought it was over once before."

Granted, but there really does have to be a point at which we let go.; 6/13/11, 4:34 PM
rhhardin said...: If it's in Iraq, it doesn't cost us anything. It's when it comes back to the USA that it starts costing.; 6/13/11, 4:40 PM
X said...: Your waste, fraud, and abuse factoid of the day: The federal government spent just a hair over $500 billion on Medicare payments in 2010—and nearly 10 percent of that spending was improper for some reason, including fraud, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.

Medicare, which the GAO notes is already on an “unsustainable” long-run path, shelled out an estimated $48 billion in "improper payments" last year; 6/13/11, 4:41 PM
Hagar said...: This money probably went to the same place that the treaty funds expended by the BIA have gone to over the last couple of centuries, and also the TARP funds given to AIG and others to spread around in 2008/09.

When the Government goes to ladling out money with no one interested in watching where it goes, this is what happens. Every time.; 6/13/11, 4:43 PM
Cedarford said...: It sort of palls next to the trillions Bush and Obama sent the NYC bankers and Wall Streeters. Or the trillions China gets because Elites sold America out under free trade and globalism.
But it is so juicy, so easy to visualize. Pallets with billions dollars of 100 bills - so many the planes had limits on how much money they could take off with to give to Bush's miscellaneous "noble freedom lovers".

At least in Afghanistan the trail is clearer. 8 billion in hundred dollar bills and gold coins (for tribal areas). Not missing because it was all registered as going to Hamid Karzai. "Bush's Special Friend".; 6/13/11, 5:28 PM
vza said...: "Some U.S. contractors were accused of siphoning off tens of millions in kickbacks and graft during the post-invasion period, especially in its chaotic early days. But Iraqi officials were viewed as prime offenders."

This is squalid and obscene. It is not something that should be shrugged off. And yes, the Bush administration is responsible for the post-invasion mismanagement.
Any company or contractor convicted of corruption should be banned from doing business with the U.S. government. Any of our own people involved in the corruption should be charged with aiding the enemy. You can be sure that American dollars were siphoned off to the "resistance" which turned around and used it to kill and maim American soldiers.; 6/13/11, 9:40 PM
David said...: Original Mike said...
"War's not over, Mike. We thought it was over once before."

Granted, but there really does have to be a point at which we let go.

My point is, even when we let go, the war is not over.

Korea, anyone?; 6/13/11, 10:07 PM
Hoosier Daddy said...: Wait, we are still in Iraq? I thought Obama was supposed to bring the troops home?; 6/14/11, 5:48 AM
AllenS said...: Drill, were you in Viet Nam in early 1968? If so, and my memory is a little fuzzy, but didn't Military Payment Script bills change color? From brown to green or vice versa?; 6/14/11, 7:08 AM