More than $21 trillion has gone missing from the Pentagon/HUD and apparently there’s not much you or Congress can do about it.

The missing trillions were discovered by Dr. Mark Skidmore, a Michigan State University economics professor and his graduate students, who found the unaccounted for spending by examining government documents from the Department of Defense and Housing and Urban Development.

According to his research, the spending started in 1998 during the Clinton Administration and continued through several other administrations until the end of fiscal year 2015.

In other words, for some time government agencies have been spending money — lots of money — not authorized by Congress.

Shortly after Skidmore went public with his findings last December, the DOD and HUD removed the documents from public access but they have since been reposted at other sites.

In one example of the discrepancies, the Army’s annual budget in 2015 was $122 billion but its actual adjustments were $6.5 trillion. Thinking it was a mistake, Skidmore contacted the Office of Inspector General, the Government Accountability Office and Congressional Budget Office and asked if the $6.5 trillion figure was supposed to be $6.5 billion. But they confirmed the $6.5 trillion was the correct adjustment.

According to Skidmore, of the missing $21 trillion, $11.5 trillion was for the Army, usually on the expenditure side. Hundreds of billions are also unaccounted for in HUD spending.

There is speculation as to what happened to the money: that it was spent appropriately but was inadequately tracked; that it was wasted; that it went toward secret projects; was used to manipulate markets to maintain the reserve status of the dollar; was stolen by those in the government and private interests; or some combination thereof.

Following these revelations last year, the Department of Defense announced it would conduct the first department-wide independent financial audit in its history.

But that was followed months later by the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) developing a new policy that allows federal agencies to publish financial statements that are altered so as to protect information on classified spending from disclosure.

The new policy was developed in response to concerns raised by the Department of Defense and others that a rigorous audit of agency financial statements could lead to unauthorized disclosure of classified information.

So the bottom line is there is no longer any oversight by Congress of how different federal agencies spend money – either the amount or what the money is for.

It could also mean that other federal agencies are also spending money not authorized by Congress and more than $21 trillion is missing.