Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., claims to have uncovered $13 billion in wasteful spending by the military, with $1 million spent on strip clubs and casinos by government employees.
"According to the [Department of Defense Investigator General], DOD employees repeatedly abused their government travel cards at casinos and strip clubs. More troubling, they got away with it, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill," McCain said in his report.
"Any personal use of a government travel card is considered misuse, and the misuse uncovered by the DOD IG should have been readily apparent to approving officials," he continued. "In a follow up report published this August, the DOD IG showed that the breakdown in DOD's process to address cardholder misuse occurred at every step in the process: preventing misuse, detecting misuse, ensuring cardholders aren't reimbursed for their misuse, disciplining cardholders for misuse, monitoring cardholders with known misuse, and restricting use of their card to prevent further misuse."
McCain, the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, found the Department of Defense spent $12 billion on combat ships with "no proven combat capability," in addition to the "unauthorized expenses" for casinos and strip clubs.
"If DOD is going to continue to perform its mission and meet our high expectations, it is going to have to produce effective military forces in the most efficient manner possible," McCain said. "This will require the continual and careful weighing of current forces and existing programs against the necessary future capabilities, and wherever possible, the elimination of the wasteful programs that threaten to undermine current and future military readiness. This oversight report should help inform that discussion and eradicate the endemic, wasteful spending due to mismanagement that is so detrimental to our national defense."
McCain also found "$375 million for Missile Defense Agency (MDA) targets that weren't used or didn't work," and "$458 million paid out inappropriately for travel expense reimbursements."
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