Thundering promises from the new Republican majority in the House to ferret out “waste” and fraud” across the federal government have become common themes since their election triumph last fall. Chief among these protectors of the taxpayer dollar and champions of “austerity” is new Oversight and Government Reform chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who has publicly promised to find $200 billion in waste that he attributes to the policies of the “corrupt” Obama administration.
Issa…said his priority was targeting government inefficiency, saying on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that he believes he can identify $200 billion in waste on things such as Medicare misspending.
Asked whether the administration was corrupt, he said, “They’ve played fast and loose with the money Congress gave them.”
At least one of his colleagues in Congress has a suggestion for where Issa and his conservative crusaders can find a few hundred billion dollars – and more – in “government” waste and overspending: the Department of Defense and unchecked spending on two wars.
…A top Democrat on the oversight committee, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio.), is calling out Issa on a glaring omission in the chairman’s attack plan: the US’s bloated defense budget.
In a letter sent Tuesday, Kucinich challenged Issa on why he hadn’t pledged to rid the Department of Defense’s $663 billion budget of wasteful spending. Kucinich cited a 2001 Government Accountability Office report, mentioned by then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, that found US officials had lost track of $2.3 trillion of DOD spending. Kucinich goes on:
“We have seen dozens of reports of corruption, lost money, and unaccountable transactions in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have seen report of billions of taxpayers dollars in shrink-wrapped packages sent to Iraq for unsupervised distribution. We have seen millions of dollars flow into Afghanistan, and we have seen millions of dollars flow out again into the hands of the family of President Hamid Karzai for purposes such as building luxury villas in Dubai.”
He concludes, “To meet your stated purpose of protecting American taxpayers from waste, fraud, and abuse, it is essential that you examine the Department of Defense and money wasted during unnecessary wars.”
This is another test the Tea Party won’t pass. They claim to be concerned about the deficit and debt but they also claimed to want to change Washington, and they are already going along with the GOP leadership to lie about open debate and amendments on all bills. It seems pretty unlikely they will actually vote to cut the military.
We sure could cut a lot out of the defense budget to include ending two wars. I’m upset that through this I found out that the Air Guard Wing in St. Louis was lost, I was an honorary member of it the late nineties.