You may have heard of corporate welfare and subsidies from the federal government paid to millionaire farmers not to grow food. I’m sure you’ve heard of the GOP’s drive to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits—entitlements that were earned and paid for by US workers and employers.

But how much have you heard about the welfare—fraud might be a better word—to industries that build weapons for the US Military?

 “Because of its persistent inability to tally its accounts, the Pentagon is the only federal agency that has not complied with a law that requires annual audits of all government departments. That means that the $8.5 trillion in taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon since 1996, the first year it was supposed to be audited, has never been accounted for. That sum exceeds the value of China’s economic output last year.” Source: Yahoo.com

And a special report from Reuters.com says, “The Pentagon’s doctored ledgers conceal epic waste. … In its investigation, Reuters has found that the Pentagon is largely incapable of keeping track of its vast stores of weapons, ammunition and other supplies; thus it continues to spend money on new supplies it doesn’t need and on storing others long out of date. It has amassed a backlog of more than half a trillion dollars in unaudited contracts with outside vendors; how much of that money paid for actual goods and services delivered isn’t known.”

Then there is this from The Wire.com: “Accounting Fraud and Waste Is Standard Procedure at the Pentagon”.

Examples of Waste in Defense Budget

And when Republicans want to cut budgets, where do they want to slash and burn? Business Insider reports on a list of “20 [so-called] Huge Spending Cuts Republicans Want to Make Right Now”.

1. Eliminate the Presidential Campaign Fund that was intended to make elections more honest

2. Eliminate funding for administrative costs of Obamacare

3. Repeal the David-Bacon Act that required federal government construction contracts include provisions for paying workers prevailing wages and benefits.

4. Eliminate funding for National and Community Service Act programs like AmeriCoprs, Senior Corps and Serve America

5. Prohibit union activities by federal employees

6. Eliminate education programs for children like Head Start, career and technical education programs, etc.

To discover the rest of the twenty budget cuts the GOP wants to make, visit Business Insider @ Business Insider.com, and if you do, see if anything on that list cuts Pentagon waste/fraud; corporate welfare or farm subsidies?

In conclusion from Truth-Out.org: “Most Americans don’t know that ‘long-term reforms’ to ‘entitlement spending’ specifically means cuts to Social Security and Medicare.” And that Reuters, Truth-out.org says [a foreign news service based in London] is the only outlet carrying this news.

Complicity is a doctrine that operates to hold persons criminally responsible for the acts of others.

“An individual is complicit in a crime if he/she is aware of its occurrence and has the ability to report the crime, but fails to do so. As such, the individual effectively allows criminals to carry out a crime despite possibly being able to stop them, either directly or by contacting the authorities, thus making the individual a de facto accessory to the crime rather than an innocent bystander.”

But what happens when an individual who is complicit in a crime is a member of Congress? Are elected representatives in Congress exempt from the law?

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Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran.

His latest novel is the award winning suspense-thriller Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was fighting for the other side.

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