Why the Pentagon Fails Audits Year After Year After Year

Last year, it was announced that the US Department of Defense had failed an audit for its seventh straight year, indicating an ongoing inability to track its hundreds of billions of dollars in spending and inventories. Why does this keep happening? Why does the Pentagon get audited in the first place? And what can be done to fix it? On this episode, we speak with Julia Gledhill, a research analyst at the National Security Reform Program at the Stimson Center. She explains how the budgetary process works, as well as the prospects for the Pentagon ever actually passing an audit. Read more: Pentagon Still Falls Short on Jump-Starting Innovation, Audit Says Billionaire Feinberg Says Pentagon Needs an Investor’s Savvy Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots

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