Renaming the Department of Defense

One of the basic rules in economics and finance is to watch out for what you’re spending. Spend wisely, invest smartly, and plan for the future. You know the drill.

But it seems the people we elect to represent us in Washington D.C. slept through that lecture.

Ronny Jackson, illustrious in his posturing and steadfastly superglued to Donald Trump’s side, recently offered up an amendment to a bill to officially rename the Department of Defense to the Department of War.

(For those elected types who are deficient in their American history, the name Department of Defense happened during Truman’s presidency when he consolidated all the different military into one unified department. Truman described it this way:

“It means a concentration and cohesion of our best military thought and our best military resources, geared to maximum efficiency. It means using our experience in World War II for the peace of the world.”

The peace of the world. American used to be the vanguard of that noble idea.

Now, not so much. )

But back to wise spending. These guys harp and crow about inefficiency and waste, but it’s all a cover, a smokescreen to hide their very own incompetence and drunken spending. This Department of Defense name change alone could cost $125 million dollars.

$125 million dollars to make a few pathetic men feel tough.

And that’s just an estimate of cost. It’s the government, after all, and nothing gets by cheaply. Here’s what the the Congressional Budget Office estimates:

Costs would be at least a few million dollars if DoD phased in a
minimal implementation, but they could be as large as $125 million if the
name change was implemented broadly and rapidly throughout the
department. A statutory renaming could cost hundreds of millions of dollars depending on how Congress and DoD chose to implement the change.

This amendment is exactly that: a statutory renaming. And it could cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Of your money.

These people might be terrible at their jobs. Incompetent at representing people. Disasters at running an economy. But they’re very good at wasting your money. They’re very good at abusing their offices and their authority.

This is what I want to stop.

Every so often I see another cry from our electeds, promoting how terrific and wonderful they are on combating fraud and waste. Ronny Jackson, is one of those who beats his chest at the slightest appearance of doing something, anything, so he can post about it.

This time it’s House Bill 1335. It’s a non-binding resolution that condemns government fraud. Here’s the relevant part of the resolution:

Resolved, That the House of Representatives—
(1) condemns the fraudulent actions of those seeking to defraud the United States Government;
(2) believes government wide fraud and improper payment prevention legislative and policy reforms will meaningfully improve the continued financial prosperity of the United States Government and the American taxpayer; and
(3) believes Federal program eligibility and spending activities should be verified prior to payments being issued.

Let me stress this. It’s not a law. It’s nothing. It’s just a resolution that goes nowhere and has authority over nothing. It doesn’t fund a thing. It doesn’t answer a question. It solves nothing. That’s what our lawmakers are doing with their time and the salaries you pay them. They condemn and believe. They urge and suggest.

We’re in a war. Life is too expensive. We’re jeopardizing our futures by massively investing in technology that will destroy jobs.

And this is the kind of non-action and pathetic “legislation” that takes up their day.

Really, though, condemning fraud with real action would be terrific. So let’s do it. And we will after this November’s election when we kick out the hucksters, fraudsters, con men, child abusers, predators, sycophants, and toadies who care nothing for you but look out for only themselves.