[OC] Yesterday Hegseth testified before Congress on a $1.5T defense budget request and couldn’t answer basic cost questions about the Iran war. The DoD has failed every audit since Congress required them in 2018. I charted it.

For those asking about the green bars:
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman’s entire operating philosophy was that you are worthless, you are stupid, and you will keep doing it wrong until you stop doing it wrong. No exceptions. No budget increases for failing. You get it right or you drop and give him twenty until you do.

The Marine Corps is the only branch that passed its audit. Three years running.
Somewhere in that methodology is a lesson the Department of Defense has declined to learn for eight consecutive years. The Marines can account for every rifle, every round, and apparently every dollar. The branch that manages the other 94% of this budget cannot tell you what a two-month war costs without hedging the number.

Someone should look into what they put in the chow hall at Parris Island. Whatever it is, it produces people who understand that “we’ll figure out the accounting later” is not an answer Hartman accepts.

The Marine Corps has been telling recruits they’re worthless until they get it right since 1775. Turns out that’s a viable financial management methodology.
Semper Fi means Always Faithful. The other six branches should look that up.
Sources: GAO-25-107427, Military Times February 2026.

Asking for more funding when you can’t even account for the funding you already have and you’re constantly telling the country you have no money for anything is pretty crazy.

Audits are funny sometimes where you need to explain a replacement of a unserviceable $1M equipment with a repaired one doesn’t mean we lost $2M worth of assets, and just put the serviceable one onto the aircraft and removed the broken one to be repaired.

Given that real world and really painful example, I think we need more details as to why those audits failed and if it has to do anything with the way accounting is done within the military.

I don’t see patriotism or warfighting on your chart so it must be part of the America-hating deep state media lies God red meat trump trump trump bzzt bllrp system failure!