Report Exposes Department of Defense Waste

Department of Defense?  Try Department of Everything!  In a recently released report entitled, “Department of Everything,” Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) reveals just how much our defense department is doing. . . that has absolutely nothing to do with protecting our country.  In the midst of the heated discussion and policy debates regarding sequestration, Senator Coburn’s report is particularly useful information.  And, the amount is mind boggling, $68 billion for what Coburn says is “’non-defense’ defense spending – spending that DOD can cut without cutting vital defense priorities.”

For far too long many in Washington, D.C. have look at DoD as a sacred cow that one should do nothing to sacrifice.  But a Sen. Coburn’s report reveals, the truth is that DoD is not immune for the wasteful, superfluous, and unnecessary spending we see in almost all government programs.

When it comes to reigning in spending, not just because the fiscal cliff, but for the sake of our nation, serious cuts and reductions in spending must occur.  Thanks to this new publication, much of identifying why and what to cut has been done for members of Congress.  Among the wasteful programs identified in “Department of Everything,” we find:

• A reality cooking show called Grill it Safe (p. 8);
• Pentagon-run microbreweries (p. 8);
• A smart phone app to alert users when to take a coffee break (p. 20); and
• Research that observed the social interaction between babies and a metallic robot.( p.33)

Like Sen. Coburn stated in his release “Billions of defense dollars are being spent on programs and missions that have little or nothing to do with national security, or are already being performed by other government agencies. Spending more on grocery stores than guns doesn’t make any sense. And using defense dollars to run microbreweries, study Twitter slang, create beef jerky, or examine Star Trek does nothing to defend our nation.”  Sen. Coburn has it right, until policy makers realize that all defense spending is not sacrosanct, and perform the oversight function of the job they were elected to do, taxpayers will continue to be bilked for unnecessary and wasteful defense spending.

As this report demonstrates there’s no need to go around scaring people into thinking cuts to DoD will translate to unarmed soldiers.  No one should question the legitimate and important role that Department of Defense serves in protecting our nation and inhabitants.  In order to insure our military has the best materials and funding to purchase them, Congress must get its act together-scaling back the “Department of Everything,” and make is what it intended to be.