Pentagon IG Report Exposes Cost of Contracting

The good folks at POGO have come into the possession of one Defense Department Inspector General's report published in March of this year. This report was at the center of a congressional hearing that was commented on by Stan Collender in a blog post (and WaPo story) we flagged yesterday. And according to the report:

read in full

House Launches "Fighting Contracting Abuse" Caucus

CongressDaily is reporting ($) that a few members of the House of Representatives are forming the "Smart Contracting Caucus" to pursue what Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) called "thoughtful federal procurement reform." But Dan Friedman at CongressDaily isn't buying the spin:

read in full

Congress Sends Bush Fair Share Act

When the Senate unanimously approved the Heroes Earnings Assistance and Relief Tax (HEART) Act (HR 6081) on Thursday, two days after the House approved it 403-0, it also approved a measure that would force federal contractors employing American workers through offshore shell companies to pay Social Security and Medicaretaxes. If signed by the president, the bill's enactment would result in hundreds of billions of in new revenues.

read in full

Senate Restricting Public Access to Contractor Data

The U.S. Senate is moving to restrict public access to a new contractor misconduct database, part of a new proposal being spearheaded by the Project on Government Oversight and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO). Apparently there is bipartisan objection to the proposal within the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Scott Amey at POGO has the rundown:

read in full

Jackson May Not Have Been Only Bad Apple at HUD

Carol Leonnig at the Washington Post wrote a great article over the weekend that gets further into the weeds on contracting problems at the Department of Housing and Urban Development under former Sec. Jackson. Leonnig profiles three small businesses that received huge jumps in the size of federal contracts they received over the last five or so years, often times despite objections of career contracting officers. It appears awarding contracts as political favors might have extended well beyond Jackson to many other high ranking officials at HUD:

read in full

Unions Boost Wages of Lowest-Income Workers the Most

Shawn Fremstad posted yesterday on a new paper released this month by John Schmitt over at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. The paper studies the impact unions have on income and has some interesting findings:

read in full

Best Spin Ever: Doan Fought for Accountability!

When I posted at the end of April that the book had closed on Lurita Doan, former head of the General Services Administration, (GSA) apparently I was wrong. She has resurfaced in interviews in GovExec magazine, on Federal News Radio and most recently in this border-line ludicrous column in Federal Computer Week by Neal Fox, the former assistant commissioner of acquisition at the GSA.

read in full

Ranks of Contracting Officers Grow, But Not Enough

Stephen Barr, who writes the Federal Diary column for the Washington Post, wrote on an interesting topic last week - the growth in federal contracting officers (COs) under President Bush. Barr reported that the number of COs has increased 6.8 percent since President Bush took office, according to federal statistics. Barr also was correct in pointing out that there are concerns among many in Washington (both inside Congress and out) that despite these increases, there are still far too few COs and they receive sub par training and support in doing their jobs.

read in full

Ed. Dept: Bush's Reading First Flunks Test

When we last left Reading First -- the Bush Administration's "education program," in which the Education Department "inappropriately influence[d] the use of certain programs and assessments" and "created an environment that allowed real and perceived conflicts of interest" -- the president was decrying the slashing of its FY 2008 bud

read in full

Op-Ed Dismissive of Contractor Oversight, Calls for More Contractors

WaPo published an op-ed Monday in which former senior Department of Defense officials Dov S. Zakheim and Lt. Gen. Ronald T. Kadish (Ret.) note a recent GAO report that finds massive cost and schedule overruns in weapons acquisitions by the Pentagon. The report implicates a degradation of competition between contracting firms resulting in, according to Zajheim and Kadish (ZK, hereafter), "a kind of 'design bureau' competition, similar to what the Soviet Union used." After complaining about an Air Force tanker project won by EADS, a European defense contractor, ZK conclude that what's really needed to curtail waste, fraud, and abuse in military contracting is increased competition in the defense market spurred by an increase in domestic defense firms. Without really explaining why, they also claim that "[m]ore regulations and bureaucratic restrictions on contractors are not the answer." Although the consolidations helped contractors survive the spending cuts, they now threaten to undermine the industry. That's because many in Congress and at the Pentagon want to impose stricter oversight and controls on weapons manufacturing and development while simultaneously demanding more competition -- driving the system to an immature and evolving "globalized" marketplace. Here's the thing though: Better oversight and better procurement practices may not "fix the problem," but because of the nature of the defense "market," it may be the government's only tool to increase acquisition value.

read in full

Pages

Subscribe to The Fine Print: blog posts from Center for Effective Government