By Erich Vieth on September 27th, 2009
How to not-audit a DOD contractor
Listen to the scolding being delivered by Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri with regard to what appears to be a fraud committed by a major Department of Defense contractor and subsequent incompetence by the GAO. How many other millions and billions of tax dollars are being wasted by the pentagon and its contractors? Where are the tea-parties protesting pentagon fraud?
Tea party protestors, like most Americans, aren’t home reading GAO reports. For the most part, like other Americans, they rely on the media or internet blogs to get their news. GAO reports don’t make news, which is a shame.
If you do a Google news search for “Defense Contract Audit Agency” or “DCAA Audits” you’ll find about 105 articles. On the other hand, if you do a Google News search for “Roman Polanski” you will find over 4,000 articles. What happens to billions of dollars of tax money is simply not as interesting as what Roman Polanski did with his penis a few decades ago, apparently a matter that no longer concerns his victim. Plus, maybe this isn’t really a good time to call the effectiveness and efficiency of government into question. Not when the government wants to socialize medicine or have one global currency or change the climate.
The full GAO report is here: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09468.pdf
Congress would do well to commend whistleblowers and exemplary auditors whenever possible. Those on the ground have a lot of insight and little institutional incentive to share it.