In an August 2016 report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the Department of Defense (DOD) does not properly separate its accounts for spending in Operations and Management (O&M). O&M receives funding from both the regular DOD base budget and the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) fund, but current accounting guidelines do not require these be separated when reporting to Congress. This muddling has a profound impact on how Congress and the public regard the defense budget, even worse are the dire impacts on our national debt.

OCO was created as a funding mechanism providing ready resources for rapidly emerging threats, such as the “Global War on Terrorism.” Under President Obama, it became “Overseas Contingency Operations,” with the same provisions to provide for war funding, but has steadily come to fund other DoD programs instead.

Under both Presidents, Bush and Obama, DoD and the White House relaxed the provisions defining wartime spending. Thus creating the current quagmire in which the DoD uses the money allocated to OCO as regular DoD funds. Obviously, not what OCO was designed for, and treating it as such makes it harder for the public and Congress to evaluate defense spending.

GAO report further stated that DOD spending reports of O&M make no differentiation between the money authorized through the base budget or through OCO. Separating the spending is not just an academic experience for Congress, it’s a mechanism that helps the public understand the distinction between defense and overseas war funding. If the Pentagon does not see these two accounts as being different, there is little reason for Congress to maintain the independent sources of funding.

My organization, Concerned Veterans for America, has made this very argument in the past: OCO needs to be absorbed into the base budget. Any exception that exists for over a decade needs to become part of the regular planning process, otherwise, it is no longer an exception, by its very definition. At its core, OCO serves to make wartime spending explicit to the American taxpayer per year, but in its current form, fails to increase the transparency that would come having wartime-only accounts.

The GAO findings that DOD treats OCO and regular funding in O&M as one reveals to American taxpayers that the contingency account has outlived its utility. Transforming from a way to fund emergency war efforts to an accounting gimmick that allows Congress to ignore restrictions placed upon the defense budget. OCO funding has become political gamesmanship to avoid making the important trade-offs that are part of formulating the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

When Congress returns to finish negotiating final provisions of the NDAA, they should take some time to consider the actual intent of OCO and how they and the executive branch have abused the vague guidelines of accounting for OCO funding. Congress would do well to take note of the GAO findings and that blending OCO with the base budget makes it harder for them to hold DoD accountable.

Congress should reflect on this practice of budget gimmickry and their obligations to the American taxpayers. DoD no longer sees OCO and base defense budget accounts as separate. Will Congress honor the American taxpayer by making clear distinctions between these accounts, or continue to manipulate the defense budgets to their own ends?