[stevew20]

I find the context in this report to be thorough enough to understand that a fair amount of the money being spent is entirely necessary. I'm intimately familiar with the costs of maintaining and upgrading military equipment and the costs of training (10 year USMC Box Kicker here). The amount of rounds a single person has to go through in order to stay sharp is insane.

However... The context in this report is also enough to highlight the obvious misspending and mistakes in reporting as well. The HHS being unable to account for ~6 million dollars labeled as military spending is scary. For 6 million dollars, someone could obtain some pretty nasty stuff. There are several more things that don't add up as well... If you look up the number of personnel authorized to carry firearms, and graph that against the number of rounds purchased, it's a fairly linear graph... Except for a few agencies, who are spending millions of dollars each year on ammo for a very small number of agents. It doesn't add up, and it's likely becoming pocket change for some Dick or Jane who's living high off of your tax dollars.

Reports like this are important because they take a pessimistic look at a budget (which is how you should ALWAYS look at a budget in business), and the inconsistencies rise to the top where we can all see them.