Washington Cannot Account for Trillions, and Congress Keeps Writing Checks

The Pentagon Keeps Failing Its Audit

The Department of Defense has failed every comprehensive audit since the first one in fiscal year 2018, and the most recent failure in November 2024 leaves more than $3.8 trillion in assets without a clean opinion. That is not an accounting quirk; it is a scandal in a department that consumes nearly half of the discretionary budget.

Auditors identified hundreds of individual weaknesses across the military services and defense agencies. The Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Space Force each received disclaimers of opinion. The Defense Logistics Agency and the Pentagon's comptroller office could not reconcile systems that track property, equipment, and contracts. After seven years of full audits, no major military department has passed.

The failure is not victimless. When the department cannot locate spare parts, track fuel deliveries, or verify contractor invoices, taxpayers pay twice for the same item or never receive what they purchased. The Government Accountability Office has listed DOD business systems modernization as a high-risk area for more than two decades. That risk translates directly into wasted money and slower support for the troops who need it.

The F-35 program alone has cost taxpayers roughly $1.7 trillion over its projected lifecycle, according to the Government Accountability Office, yet the aircraft continues to face software and engine problems. The Army's Integrated Visual Augmentation System, canceled in 2022 after consuming $22 billion, is another reminder that unaccountable money invites unaccountable results.

Improper Payments Are Not a Rounding Error

The federal government reported roughly $236 billion in improper payments during fiscal year 2023, a figure that includes overpayments, underpayments, and payments made to the wrong recipient entirely. Much of it flows through Medicaid, Medicare, and unemployment programs that Congress expands faster than agencies can verify.

The Office of Management and Budget publishes these numbers each year, and they rarely improve. In 2022, the government reported $247 billion in improper payments. In 2023, the number dipped slightly but remained larger than the entire economy of countries such as Portugal or Greece. That is not a measurement problem. It is a management problem.

Some programs carry error rates that would shutter a private firm. The Earned Income Tax Credit, expanded repeatedly by Congress, has posted improper payment rates above 20 percent in recent years. The Medicaid program, now covering more than 80 million Americans, struggles with eligibility verification as states process applications under federal pressure to enroll quickly.

The pandemic-era unemployment insurance programs produced a staggering share of these losses. The Department of Labor's inspector general estimated in 2023 that at least $191 billion in pandemic unemployment benefits may have been improper, with a significant portion attributed to fraud. States rushed to disburse funds with weak identity verification, and organized criminal networks cashed in.

Congress responds to these findings with hearings, press releases, and occasional pilot programs. It rarely responds with clawbacks. The money leaves the Treasury, and the agencies move on. That pattern teaches recipients and administrators that accuracy is optional.

Duplication Is a Choice, Not a Force of Nature

The Government Accountability Office's 2024 annual report identified 98 new actions across 26 federal mission areas where programs overlap, duplicate one another, or suffer from fragmented management. Those findings could save tens of billions of dollars if Congress chose to consolidate rather than create new offices.

Examples recur year after year. The federal government runs 160 separate housing programs across more than two dozen agencies. It maintains 45 federal employment and training programs. It funds 23 agencies involved in renewable energy promotion. Each program has its own staff, budget line, grant application, and congressional patron. The result is not coordination. It is turf warfare.

Farm policy offers another example. The Department of Agriculture runs multiple conservation, crop insurance, and rural development initiatives that overlap with programs at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy. A farmer seeking help can face a maze of forms, deadlines, and eligibility rules that vary by county and agency. Consolidation would help taxpayers and applicants alike.

The national debt crossed $35 trillion in 2024, according to Treasury Department daily statements, and interest on that debt now consumes a larger share of federal revenue than defense spending. The Congressional Budget Office warned in early 2025 that annual deficits would remain above $1.5 trillion for the foreseeable future. Those numbers mean that every duplicated program is a program Washington borrows to maintain. Sunlight would help, but Congress keeps the details buried in thousand-page omnibus bills that pass at midnight.

Fixing this does not require a constitutional convention. It requires a Congress willing to hold hearings that matter, sunset programs that fail, and reject the lazy promise that a new grant program will succeed where twenty old ones did not. The federal budget is not a force of nature. It is a set of choices. And the choices have been reckless.