“It means money that DoD moved from one part of the budget to another,” Clark explained to Task & Purpose. “So, like in your household budget: It would be like moving money from checking, to savings, to your 401K, to your credit card, and then back.”
However, $35 trillion is close to 50-times the size of the Pentagon's 2019 budget, so that means every dollar the Defense Department received from Congress was moved up to 50 times before it was actually spent, Clark said.
They're not saying that the US spends $35T on defense, they are saying that the budget is so complex that the aggregate value of internal transactions (i.e. budget allocation flowing down to sub-departments) is $35T. They use this complexity to claim (without evidence) that some money must be being skimmed.
Not a fan of the amount the US spends on defense, but I'm also not a fan of arguments that make claims without any proof.
> I'm also not a fan of arguments that make claims without any proof.
I'm with you but in this case the Pentagon hid the results of its first independent audit. There is no proof, but the fact they changed the rules to hide the results of the audit says all I need to know. If the pentagon wants to prove me wrong I'm all for it. Release the results and prove me wrong.
“It means money that DoD moved from one part of the budget to another,” Clark explained to Task & Purpose. “So, like in your household budget: It would be like moving money from checking, to savings, to your 401K, to your credit card, and then back.”
However, $35 trillion is close to 50-times the size of the Pentagon's 2019 budget, so that means every dollar the Defense Department received from Congress was moved up to 50 times before it was actually spent, Clark said.