Put More Rigor Into Defense Audits

摘要

Lost in the debate about U.S. defense spending-should it be reformed, cut, expanded or some combination thereof-is the glaring fact that no one knows precisely where the money is being spent or even how much is being spent. Yes, there is the headline-grabbing figure that, with war costs included, the White House has asked for more than $708 billion for the fiscal year that started Oct. 1. But dig into the documents or tune into congressional hearings and you quickly discover that the calculations and assumptions used to arrive at such figures are nebulous, at best, and almost certainly wrong (high or low).