I'm tired of the government claiming to be broke and raising the debt ceiling and having no idea where our money went.
I used to get that from my daughter all the time...
I think part of the "problem" is that the auditors may feel the documentation doesn't meet their standards. Audits are painful, time-consuming, expensive, and not necessarily worth the effort.
A neighbor is a GS-14 comptroller at PACDIV, a major military infrastructure-building command. They're the ones who negotiate the multi-gazillion dollar contracts to build new facilities on military bases or in military housing complexes. A few years ago he did the civilian equivalent of a one-year IA in Iraq, acting as an intermediary between the U.S. and the Iraqi local governments (such as they are).
He said his job was to teach the local city/tribal councils to ask the local/national government for the funds that they were entitled to. All their requests (for example, a new electric utility) had been forwarded up the chain for Iraq's new government to collate and decide. When that utility plant was approved, though, Iraq's new central govt wouldn't hand out the money until someone asked for it. The local city/tribal councils had been "trained" (by the previous administration's coercion, imprisonment, and occasional executions) not to ask for it. An "advocate" for that council had to go tell the government to cough it up, and perhaps he'd be entitled to a consulting fee for his facilitation efforts.
Even when the municipality of a remote area got the funds they were entitled to, it was a challenge to make sure they weren't ripped off by bad contractors or other carpet-baggers. But the money did go to Iraq and it did get spent in Iraq, and at least 51% of it was spent as intended.
The money directly stimulated Iraq's economy. Under those conditions, though, it was difficult to find an auditor who would agree that the money was properly spent.
