{"id":25166,"date":"2026-08-04T13:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T17:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/?p=25166"},"modified":"2026-08-04T13:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T17:44:09","slug":"wyden-merkley-colleagues-reintroduce-bipartisan-bill-to-audit-the-pentagon-and-end-wasteful-spending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/es\/wyden-merkley-colleagues-reintroduce-bipartisan-bill-to-audit-the-pentagon-and-end-wasteful-spending\/","title":{"rendered":"Wyden, Merkley y sus colegas vuelven a presentar un proyecto de ley bipartidista para auditar el Pent\u00e1gono y acabar con el gasto superfluo."},"content":{"rendered":"

Senators: The Pentagon failed its eighth consecutive audit last year, unable to fully account for $4.65 trillion in assets<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Washington D.C.\u2014<\/em><\/strong>U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley today said they joined Senate colleagues in reintroducing legislation that would impose financial consequences if the Pentagon fails to pass a full, independent audit. Any Pentagon department that fails to achieve a clean audit would have 2% of its budget withheld and returned to the U.S. Treasury for deficit reduction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cTaxpayers cannot keep writing blank checks for a Department of Defense that repeatedly fails to account for trillions of dollars in assets,\u201d<\/strong> dijo Wyden. \u201cThe Pentagon remains the only major federal agency incapable of passing a clean financial audit. It is long past time to enforce real financial consequences when the government mismanages taxpayer dollars. The Audit the Pentagon Act <\/em>would hold the Defense Department to the basic standards of transparency and fiscal accountability that every other agency is expected to meet.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThe Pentagon routinely fails audits without consequences, enabling fraud, waste, and abuse,\u201d <\/strong>dijo Merkley.  \u201cThis must come to an end.  The American people deserve to know that their tax dollars are being spent efficiently.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Despite accounting for more than half of the federal government\u2019s discretionary spending and roughly two-thirds of all federal contracting activity, the Pentagon remains the only one of the federal government\u2019s 24 major agencies to have never passed a clean financial audit \u2014 a requirement under federal law since the early 1990s and mandatory on an annual basis since 2018. In its eighth consecutive failed audit, which was released in December 2025 and covered $4.65 trillion in reported assets and $4.7 trillion in liabilities across all 50 states and more than 40 countries, the Pentagon Office of Inspector General identified 26 instances of the most severe auditing errors and two additional significant accounting issues in the department\u2019s internal controls over financial reporting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Examples of waste and fraud at the Pentagon include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n