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Return to Article: Report: Agencies making little progress in tracking real property

• 14882
  

  "Defense Department was spending an estimated $3 billion to $4 billion annually on maintenance for unneeded buildings."

  Of course we do this. Remember how resistant Congress has been to closing unnecessary military bases throughout the world. We have one really hard time getting rid of any infrastructure that might impact a congressional district's employment. Therefore, there is a world wide lobbying effort for DoD to retain and maintain unnecessary buildings, weapons and bases. You cannot have it both ways Congress! GAO works for Congress so they should redo their report to illustrate how much of the unnecessary stock is due to congressional pressure. Bet they cannot find most of it! Also, most of the infrastructure is so old that it is fully depreciated, so tell Mr. Walker that there is no book value to the assets his agency is talking about -- see how good accrual accounting is at making bad decisions!

  Taxpayer Posted February 15, 2006 7:11 AM
• 14806
  

  Please . . . Grace Commission had two somewhat successes. Financial management and real property disposal. What's happened since then? I'm sure agencies clearly understand what real property they have. Problem with some federal properties is that no one would want them and we wouldn't let them have them; e.g., a Western state with ex-military base contaminated with results from biological warfare research from the 50's/maybe 60's.

  barbara wamsley Posted February 10, 2006 8:10 PM
• 14728
  

  "Ownership of the buildings ties up financial resources that could be better utilized elsewhere." This is the kind of stupid statement that GAO makes and that Congress accepts. If we own the building, the resources are gone and destroying the building will not generate any funds. Look at BRAC property transfers. The military bases closed by BRAC are transferred in large part to local groups for no dollars. We save the maintenance on the facilities but we do not free any resources from the transfer. In fact politics causes the transfers to involve spending more money for the local groups. We accelerate environmental cleanup, we do and pay for the environmental impact study of the effect of the use of the property that the local group proposes, we give housing away to homeless by congressional action, and almost never are any resources "freed up" for other use! GAO needs to come into the real world and get their stories straight rather than pumping out the political garbage they do to get raves from Congress.

  Taxpayer Posted February 9, 2006 7:00 AM