“The Pentagon announced on June 21, 2023 that it had overestimated the value of arms sent to Ukraine over the past two years by $6.2 billion. Now, the discovery of additional errors brings the total unspent sum to $8.2 billion.”
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"U.S. Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) allows the president to allocate equipment from U.S. stocks, such as ammunition, vehicles, and medical supplies, to respond to crises abroad. PDA arises from the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.
The Pentagon’s “efforts to properly value defense articles for drawdown are hampered because the Foreign Assistance Act does not clearly define certain terms and DOD lacks PDA-specific valuation guidance,” according to the GAO.
Due to the errors, the Defense Department can send a further $2 billion in weapons to Ukraine to cover the amount already approved by U.S. President Joe Biden."
This might be a dumb question, but what is the actual point of the government lying about something to claim reduced costs? I remember having this thought when the Biden admin held that press conference to announce that the Gaza aid pier had actually cost $200 million and not $300 million. Once numbers get unfathomly large my mind more or less equates them, and it’s not like I have any intuition that makes it so that I can read that an aid pier costs $200 million and think “wow, what a steal”. Who are the citizens that feel good when hearing this bullshit about we actually spent this inconcievably large number and not that slightly bigger inconceivably large number? Who is impressed by this press conference?
For the “Presidential Drawdown Authority” specifically, there is a hard dollar limit set by congress that the president must work within. Underreporting the costs means they can send more equipment.
Interesting…