BTW, I assume a well informed fellow like yourself is aware that the DOD has failed six consecutive audits. Oops, make that seven!

As a well informed fellow like yourself, you know that none of the 3 examples in your post have anything to do with the payment systems, other than paying authorized payments.

I the first to examples, pickleball and holograms, were authorized to be made by Congress. It is not the function of the payment system to question decisions authorized by Congress. The payment system was designed to pay the exact party the exact amount that was authorized by Congress, which they did. Perhaps Musk should investigate Congress.

The Pentagon’s failure to get a clean audit (as CFO of a $20 million organization, I regularly received clean audits, but that’s because I had my hands in every facet of the business. Also, I may point out, $20 million isn’t even petty cash compared to $824 billion) has absolutely nothing to do with the payment systems. If the people authorized to approve payments authorize a $6,000 hammer, the payment system would be 100% correct to pay the vendor $6,000. Again, the problem isn’t the payment system, it’s the individual given the authority to approve payments by the Pentagon.

Hope that helps.