Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tried Sunday to explain how Pentagon accounting errors somehow justified the existence of a $32 trillion government healthcare system and failed miserably.
Ocasio-Cortez’s mental gymnastics were based off an excerpt of an article from the far-left publication, The Nation, which stated:
In all, at least a mind-boggling $21 trillion of Pentagon financial transactions between 1998 and 2015 could not be traced, documented, or explained, concluded Skidmore.
Ocasio-Cortez tweeted: “$21 TRILLION of Pentagon financial transactions ‘could not be traced, documented, or explained.’ $21T in Pentagon accounting errors. Medicare for All costs ~$32T. That means 66% of Medicare for All could have been funded already by the Pentagon.And that’s before our premiums.”
$21 TRILLION of Pentagon financial transactions “could not be traced, documented, or explained.”
$21T in Pentagon accounting errors. Medicare for All costs ~$32T.
That means 66% of Medicare for All could have been funded already by the Pentagon.
And that’s before our premiums. https://t.co/soT6GSmDSG
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) December 2, 2018
Brian Riedl, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, explained why Ocasio-Cortez’s tweet was utter lunacy, noting that the Department of Defense has not even spent $21 trillion in the over 70 years that it has existed.
Riedl noted that the entire Pentagon budget from 1789-2018 has only totaled $18 trillion, which is based on records from the Office of Management and Budget.
For those wondering:
In the original study, $21 trillion refers to transfers back-and-forth between accounts. So the same $1 can be counted 1000’s of times. It *does not* mean that $21 trillion in total spending was mis-spent.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/38941/ocasio-cortez-gets-roasted-after-strikingly-ryan-saavedra
h/t McShillin