Last year, Michigan State prof Mark Skidmore documented that the DoD could not account for $21 trillion over 18 years. This amount is more than twice what the DoD was authorized by Congress to spend during this time.
The government's response has been to change accounting rules so that this can never be reported again. The agency responsible for accounting standards has just made it legal to cook the Federal books.
"Simply put, Standard 56 creates a set of situations where government entities may move numbers around to conceal where money is actually spent or even not report spending outright."