While this week's focus in Congress on excessive spending at the General Services Administration zeroed in on over $822,000 spent on a conference in Las Vegas, many in Congress think much more than that is at risk in the military's budget when it comes to waste, fraud and abuse.
Just Google the words, "Pentagon audit billions" and you'll see what I mean.
"Navy, Marines have $22 billion in accounting errors."
"Pentagon audit finds $15 billion in Iraq funds unaccounted for."
You get the picture.
At over $530 billion - the largest budget item that Congress deals with each year - there is little certainty about where all that money is going, as the Pentagon has never received a "clean" financial audit.
Never.
But the military is trying.
"Today, the Department is able to account for the funds that are appropriated for its use by Congress, but – unlike most other government agencies -- we cannot yet account for those funds to an auditable standard," said Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale at a Wednesday hearing.
Hale's testimony came just a few floors away from a hearing on the GSA - where lawmakers were expressing bipartisan outrage - but Hale was positively bubbly in a Senate hearing on Wednesday afternoon about the progress being made on a clean audit for the military,
The Pentagon's goal is to make that clean audit happen by 2017.
Let me repeat that - the goal is to get a clean budget audit for the military in five years.
Not this year. Not next year. But in 2017.
"We need to reassure the public and the Congress that we are good stewards of the public funds," said Hale.
Right now, the Pentagon is the only federal agency that has been unable to reach that "clean audit" standard, even though they have been trying for over 20 years.
So while many people might get worked up about wrongful spending at the GSA, at least that agency has been able to get an auditor to say that the GSA financial statements are reliable.
The U.S. military still has a ways to go on that score.
