I have previously written about the waste of billions of dollars by the government without any significant discipline of government officials. We have become accustomed to reports of unimaginable corruption and waste in Afghanistan from bags of money delivered to officials to constructing huge buildings immediately torn down to buying aircraft that cannot be used. Much like our useless campaign against poppy production where we continued to spend billions because no one had the courage to end or change the program. We now have another such example from Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko about a $500,000 facility that was built and just left to “melt away” within four months of being built. Of course, contractors and corrupt Afghan officials have made huge amounts of money from such waste. Billions have disappeared while our own science, educational, and infrastructure programs are being cut. The flow of U.S. money however has not ended. After a trillion dollars, our government is on course to spend billions more in the country.
The latest example of waste is the $456,669 Afghan Special Police Training Center’s dry fire range. Notably, within four months, the buildings are disintegrating because of the contractor’s use of defective construction methods and materials. However, the Defense Department has followed its past pattern and declined to hold the contractor responsible for what could be viewed as fraud or criminal neglect in the construction of the building.
The police training center’s dry fire range (DFR) was commissioned by the U.S. government but quickly fell apart after its completion in 2012. It was built under the supervision of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) but actually built by the Afghan contractor, Qesmatullah Nasrat Construction (QNCC). QNCC reportedly used shoddy material that allowed water to become trapped between the walls and causing extensive structural failures. Likewise, while QNCC was supposed to use the standard building paper, gravel and asphalt on the roof, it simply used plastic sheeting before setting the concrete. Down spouts were left unconnected to drainage pipes and undersized, inferior bricks used made mostly of sand with little clay.
The most significant question however is not the fact that an Afghan contractor may have ripped off the United States (and its own countrymen). There is unfortunately nothing new in such a story. The question is again why nothing was done to hold either the contractor or the supervising CENTCOM officials accountable for this latest waste.
After years of outrage of billions in waste, it is clear that there is no serious pressure on U.S. officials to guarantee that over a trillion dollars is being spent appropriately. There is no report on the CENTCOM people overseeing this project being fired or severely disciplined, for example. It is just another half a million dollars poured into the cesspool of Afghan corruption. In the meantime, my kids sit in public school classes in Fairfax County with over 35 other kids because there is no money to hire teachers.
Source: Fox
Chip S … a VAT is a tax on value added at every step of processing or manufacture. However, they key issue is that it is always due, whether or not that process or manufacture is productive…e.g., produces income from which to pay the VAT. In loss years the business owner(s) must pay from retained earnings or out of their personal pockets. I’ve done it, as the CFO, during my private sector interlude. Labor is not deductible, therefore the laborer finds his prices increased by the VAT that already taxed his labor output. If joined with an income tax, the laborer is taxed once again. In Michigan we had the VAT, an income tax for citizens, and a sales tax. Joe Sixpack’s butt bled dearly.
The combination was crushing here and explains a good deal of what went wrong here in business and employment…those car manufacturers, of any source originally, in the south & west didn’t just appear there by accident. Businesses do have the right to shut down and go out of business (for the smaller ones), or move out of state (for the larger more national firms)….not much of a choice.
The worst detail, for us here…the VAT and income taxes were the sum of proposals of two Republican governors, Romney (income tax) and Milliken (doubled the income tax and added the VAT). As I’ve said, our current Republican governor got rid of the VAT, but now can’t resist scoping up savings on fuel costs, rather than let citizens spend the savings as they wish, you know, on goods and services provided by others in the marketplace, so he wants to increase the fuel excise tax by a factor of 2.5 : 1…. put me in the camp that trusts no politician anymore. Least of all if they favor a VAT, then next those who can’t resist taking savings for Joe Sixpack, at the gas pump, for the government financial abyss. Trust me, I love it that it no longer costs me $100 to fill my truck’s tank….and I am not in the mood to share with politicians.
Good try to justify it though….credit given for that. Never the less any and all “consumption taxes” are regressive by definition. Any and all taxation should be productivity based, right from the beginning of taxation in the USA…e.g., the Whiskey Tax.
I think everyone would be for a flat tax. The huge software and financial services industries would never let that happen. I think they even told Reagan to shut up when he started talking about it.
We need to elect someone with a huge red pen to X-out these budgets and invisible “intelligence” departments. Take away the money and life will be a lot better for everyone.
Aridog, a VAT doesn’t have to fall on labor, but if it does that’s b/c that’s about the same thing as taxing consumption, which is commonly (but not necessarily) the aim of a VAT.
Wonky details here.
It’s widely believed that a VAT is the same thing as a consumption tax, b/c most places that impose it do allow full expensing of capital purchases. This is possibly b/c those places are adding their VAT to an existing set of taxes that already tax capital, such as taxes on corporate income or on property.
And VAT hides taxes in the supply chain, which ultimately get passed to the consumer who will have no idea of the aggrigate taxes he/she has paid. All taxes should be fully disclosed as part of holding the agents of the state accountable.
Aridog – yes, I agree. A flat income tax makes sense.
Politics is an unending money pit. They ALWAYS want more money.
Darren:
“This is why we must have a balanced budget requirement in our Constitution. If politicians had to fiscally constrain themselves like normal people do garbage like this would not happen as often.”
That is music to my fiscal conservative ears. 🙂
It is irresponsible to fail to reform the government procurement system.
We all pay in our taxes, only to see them wasted as the government overpays and contractors under-deliver.
Open bids. No union membership required. And consequences for the government agency that produces a bad job.
The rules of the “real world” should apply to government employees, too.
Groty said …
… establish a value added consumption tax.
Right. Establish the most regressive of all taxes, one that essentially taxes labor twice. I’ve worked with such a tax, the Michigan “Single Business Tax” which was designed to be a politician’s dream tax…one owed even when there is no proceeds (income) from which to pay the tax. Labor expense was not deductible and there were no pass through credits ala’ Canada. Fortunately, it has been ended under the current Republican governor. Never the less, said governor has his RINO credentials showing now…with gasoline prices falling steeply, he’s proposing a revised fuel excise tax, going from 18 cents per gallon to 45 cents per gallon. You know, to “capture” all those savings as taxes. No politician can leave money on the table, it would be unseemly…ordinary people might spend it as they wished.
You want to discuss a flat income tax, one based upon proceeds of work, aka “income”, and I’ll listen. A VAT? Been there, done that. No thank you. Wrote checks to the state in loss years…which never made any sense to me.
The buck stops where?
Here are a couple of caveats the federal constitution could use (from the WA State Constitution)
Article II SECTION 19 BILL TO CONTAIN ONE SUBJECT. No bill shall embrace more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title.
That one sentence saves our state from the morass of pork barrel gluttony that Congress snootily dines on. Our state supreme court has been quite headstrong in upholding this. Think of the billions in pet projects that could be saved on the fed level if this happened.
Our governor is also provided a Line / Item veto authority so he/she can nix bad parts of a bill and still allow the remainder of the bill to become law.
Darren – we have one of those provisions in our Constitution, too.
Groty-
Your proposal for taxes limited to sales tax, or the proposal of a flat tax, would not be adequate to fund the massive and insanely wasteful US military-security complex. It might be adequate to fund everything else, so actually a good idea if coupled with abolishing the military/security complex.
way = war
Agree with Darren about a balanced budget, but another part of the problem is that to buy votes the politicians have decided not to confiscate income from about 50% of the population. Those people have little incentive to care about fraud, waste, abuse, and corruption. Repeal the 16th Amendment, abolish the IRS, repeal the federal income tax, and establish a value added consumption tax. Everybody pays, just like everybody pays state sales tax.
And then every time the politicians decide they want to confiscate more wealth, they’d have to raise the consumption tax on EVERYBODY. The threat of being kicked out of office for raising taxes should instill discipline.
Unfortunately, at the state of the union address Obama will announce he would like to institutionalize the corruption even deeper. He will say he’d like to steal more wealth from “the rich” and give some of it to the precious 50% who already don’t pay income taxes to buy their votes. Because he cares.
“Ya see, this is how it will work. We bomb them into submission. That’s the shock part. Then we smother them with money. That’s the awe part.”
The Three Stooges, brought to you by Haliburton and the AOA, Associated Oligarchs of America.
“You have to understand, every Afghan and every Iraqi has a rolled up American flag hidden in their home. They have been waiting for us to come and set them free.”
Dick Cheney
“You go to war with what ya got.”
Rumsfeld
issac – you always go to way with what you have. You might try to convince your enemy you have something else, but only bring so much to the table.
The American people have given our federal government a book of blank checks. If you raise any kind of issue about this example, they will say it was less than $500,000. Who cares? Why are we even talking about this.
We need to take away the money to stop the corruption. Personally, I think all federal taxes should be voluntary. Let the government compete for our money like corporations do. Let the federal government ask the States for the money that they need.
Darren is on target. I like to refer to Milton Friedman and his 4 ways to spend money https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RDMdc5r5z8
This is self-actualized government. In other words this is not an example of government at its worst, Afghanistan is the finest example of government at the apex of what it does.
This is what happens when we have runaway politicians who believe money is like nitrogen in the atmosphere.
This is why we must have a balanced budget requirement in our Constitution. If politicians had to fiscally constrain themselves like normal people do garbage like this would not happen as often.
At least in many states the pols are required to balance the budget. That way they fight as they always do and in the end the state still is relatively on good financial footing. But with the US Congress they fight just as fiercely and it is just a matter of how many hundreds of billions they spend the nation into the red.
And this is a surprise? 13 years of wasted blood and treasure would indicate that shafting clueless Americans is the normal course of action for Afghans. Besides the link below, shoddy construction occurred repeatedly.
In October 2004, the United States Army issued an urgent bulletin to commanders across Iraq, warning them of a deadly new threat to American soldiers. Because of flawed electrical work by contractors, the bulletin stated, soldiers at American bases in Iraq had received severe electrical shocks, and some had even been electrocuted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/world/middleeast/04electrocute.html?pagewanted=all
“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”
Really???? This is chump change. The is the spork of CENTCOM,
It is the American Way. By the way, any update on the missing $6.6 billion in cash from Iraq under Bremer’s watch?
Cui bono? Not ours.