A reader writes about the size of the US DoD:
The Department of Defense is so immense, and its “budget” also so immense, the idea of auditing it to find all the Things is amusing in the least. Even with various smaller components trying hard to to be efficient and effective, there’s so much slop, it’s ridiculous. It employs over 2 million people, operates over half a million facilities at over 5000 locations. A billion here and billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.
Perhaps. The proper metric is hard to select. For example, from the world of private enterprise, Walmart employs over 2.3 million people and has over 11,000 locations. On the other hand, the mission and operations of Walmart does not compare to that of the US DoD, the latter having far more complexity.
But, in principle, it should be possible to track the money in the US DoD almost as readily as I’m sure Walmart tracks its cash flow.
