Good afternoon - 

With each Iowan shouldering more than $61,000 of our national debt, we need to know where our tax dollars are going, which is why I give out the Squeal Award once a month to highlight misuse of federal funds, and this month, I’m calling for a federal agency to come clean.


Squeal Award: Auditing the Department of Defense

In 1990, legislation was signed into law which mandated that all federal agencies and departments complete an audit. Clean audits are good practice, as they ensure that taxpayer dollars are being used efficiently and protect against fraud, waste, and abuse. 

For 25 years – and throughout several presidential administrations – all agencies have complied with this commonsense congressional oversight process, except for one

The Department of Defense (DOD) is the only agency yet to complete the mandated audit and comply with federal law. As threats abroad grow, and Congress aims to provide much needed resources to DOD for our national security, a clean audit is more important than ever to show the American people that it's using taxpayer dollars effectively.

If an individual or private company failed to comply with an audit, they would find themselves in some pretty hot water with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which begs the question: Why are we not holding the DOD to the same standard?

With the federal debt approaching $20 trillion, it is critical that the DOD conduct this audit. Their decades-long inability to produce the necessary documents for a clean audit is not only concerning, but it puts our national security at risk. 

Earlier this month, I led a bipartisan letter to Secretary of Defense James Mattis to call on the department to work with Congress to complete this long-overdue audit and meet the upcoming deadline set by the Fiscal Year 2010 National Defense Authorization Act of September 30, 2017.  

I will be closely watching the DOD’s plan to complete this task and will continue to hold federal agencies accountable to ensure your hard earned dollars are protected. Due to the failure to comply with mandated audits, I hereby present this month's Squeal Award to the decades-old negligence at the Department of Defense. 


Do you have an example of government waste or inefficiencies that I should take a look at? Send me an email by clicking here.

Thank you!