We progressives need to work this scandal into every political conversation we engage in, especially when we talk to conservatives. Cutting government spending and accountability are supposed to be core GOP values.

Combine "Known" Pentagon waste (like the 1.5 Trillion dollar F35) with missing pentagon money and you have a good chunk of our entire national debt represented.

"What's that? Body cameras for all cops will be too expensive? How bout we find 1/10,000th of the money we sent to the pentagon."

"Oh really? There's 500 million in provable food stamp fraud going to poor people how bout the 8.5 TRILLION the pentagon can't account for?"

"Oh really? You think Obama care is going to cost us almost a trillion dollars over 15 years? How about the 8.5 Trillion that just disappeared into the ether at the pentagon? What's you're take on that?"

"Oh really, you're concerned about deficit spending and the debt? Fully 1/3 of the national debt it is money we sent the Pentagon and they can't tell us where it went. It's just gone."

"College for everyone will cost too much? You must be really pissed at the 8.5 Trillion, with a 't', dollars the pentagon's spent and can't tell us where it went."

Bringing up this "open secret" exposes their hypocrisy, and draws attention to the lack of corporate media attention to this HUGE SCANDALOUS level of waste by the Military/Industrial/Media (<-should be new addition to the lexicon) complex ownership of government. It seems for few hundred million in "be all you can be" ad buys the MSM will keep it's mouth shut. We need to press so called journalists to bring this issue front and center. No candidate should be allowed to talk about government waste or big government with out being asked the follow up "What would you do about the massive 8.5 Trillion dollars the pentagon can't account for?"

In short; nothing reinforces our position that the money for valuable social and infrastructure programs (that have provable returns on investment) is actually there than this scandal. We need to harp on this until we get some answers and we need to leverage it more to shut down debate about desperately needed social program spending. Money visualization grabbed from this site you should check it out HERE http://demonocracy.info/...

Here's an additional point : 8.5 Trillion dollars represents about $70,000 from each of the 123 Million US households.

Updated this diary as the totals were misinterpreted although the crux is the same. Also of note is this is scandalous because the Pentagon has been required by law to be "audit ready" since 1996, but still has no real accounting systems.

Help Some kids out if you enjoyed this diary http://www.dailykos.com/...