GOP Sen. Braun: We’re Using Pentagon that Can’t Account for Most of Its Assets as ‘Quid Pro Quo’ to Get Deeper in Debt

On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Kudlow,” Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) stated that the omnibus bill is an example of the “unholy alliance” where Republicans agree to increases in domestic spending for boosted defense spending and argued that because the Pentagon can’t account for most of its assets, they should “improve it first before you use that as a quid pro quo that gets us deeper in debt every year.”

Braun said, “The biggest thing is, we get rolled so often by the other side. And, in this case, they want us to roll over to them on anything domestic. And they do that by saying hey, you can have whatever you want on defense. Defense is the most important thing we do, but it’s kind of that unholy alliance that drives this [in]sanity each year and drives this poor process.”

He later added, “Why would we want to give Nancy Pelosi a going-away present as Speaker, let Schumer have his fingerprints all over it? And here’s why: Because our side said, it does so much for us for defense. Again, the most important thing we do, the Defense Department just completed an audit that cost about $180 million to do on where their assets are, 3.5 trillion, they could only account for 39% of them. And when you’ve got a place like that that doesn’t even know what it owns, where they’re at, and wants more, I say improve it first before you use that as a quid pro quo that gets us deeper in debt every year. That does not make sense.”

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