Celebrity Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blatantly misrepresented this Nation article on Pentagon waste in an effort to make her Medicare-for-all affordable seem affordable:
$21 TRILLION of Pentagon financial transactions “could not be traced, documented, or explained.”
$21T in Pentagon accounting errors. Medicare for All costs ~$32T.
That means 66% of Medicare for All could have been funded already by the Pentagon.
And that’s before our premiums. https://t.co/soT6GSmDSG
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) December 2, 2018
You see, this $21 Trillion figure she’s throwing around is, shall we say, just a tad off:
Wow. You claim $21 Trillion in Pentagon Waste? The entire Pentagon budget from 1789-2018 has totaled $18 trillion,
Come on, This is embarrassing. https://t.co/ezdhqWQFyc
— Brian Riedl (@Brian_Riedl) December 2, 2018
And the Nation made clear that the figure she’s quoting is not actual Pentagon spending but a number that results from really awful accounting tricks employed by the Pentagon:
This is a wild misinterpretation of the Nation article. A key point of the article is these reported amounts do not reflect the Pentagon’s actual spending behavior. https://t.co/O3w6m1kBdV
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) December 2, 2018
From the article:
To be clear, Skidmore, in a report coauthored with Catherine Austin Fitts, a former assistant secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development who complained about similar plugs in HUD financial statements, does not contend that all of this $21 trillion was secret or misused funding. And indeed, the plugs are found on both the positive and the negative sides of the ledger, thus potentially netting each other out. But the Pentagon’s bookkeeping is so obtuse, Skidmore and Fitts added, that it is impossible to trace the actual sources and destinations of the $21 trillion. The disappearance of thousands of records adds further uncertainty. The upshot is that no one can know for sure how much of that $21 trillion was, or was not, being spent legitimately.
“Bad math” is putting it mildly:
Very bad math. https://t.co/1IHq4FPATM
— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) December 2, 2018
We’re just spitballing here, but maybe she doesn’t know what she’s talking about?
This is annoying because AOC is making a bad/self defeating argument for something I support. 1, "can't be audited because DOD is bad at accounting" is not the same as "wasted." Makes her look like she doesn't know what she's talking about. https://t.co/DVzrUB8bSr
— David Solimini (@CommsDirector) December 2, 2018
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Related:
Well DUH: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accidentally made a case against ‘Medicare For All’ and she didn’t even realize it https://t.co/2j1tr61Vnt
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) December 2, 2018
‘Utterly ridiculous’! Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s comparison to her election victory is OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD https://t.co/agLaexz8qw
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) November 30, 2018
Bless her HEART! Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tries talking tough with the Senate about not funding Trump’s ‘racist wall’ and ROFL https://t.co/LKFrxSZGZz
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) November 30, 2018
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