Last Wednesday morning, I attended a House Armed Services Subcommittee hearing convened by the recently formed Defense Acquisition Reform Panel. The three witnesses – Gordon R. England, a two-time Secretary of the Navy and former Deputy Secretary of Defense, Edmund P. Giambastiani, Jr., a retired Navy admiral and former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Ronald T. Kadish, a retired Air Force Lieutenant General – all emphasized the same abstract fix and provided little, if any, concrete guidance.

Each witness successively argued that the key to acquisition reform is the integration of the three sections of acquisition: requirements, budgets, and procurement. Oddly enough, that was the title of the hearing: "Coordinating Requirements, Budgets, and Acquisition: How Does It Affect Costs and Acquisition Outcomes?" Moreover, as the three experts moved through their respective statements, it seemed that all their years of experience in the acquisition process only proved to them that reform efforts, at least through Congress, are at best unhelpful, and at worst exacerbate the problem.

Rather, England, Giambastiani, and Kadish all advocated for less regulation of the contracting process, more congressional flexibility with contractors and more use of multiyear contracts by the Pentagon. The latter suggestion, according to the three acquisition specialists, would provide stability to the development of weapon systems and reap large cost savings for taxpayers. When later asked what specific actions they would take to simplify the current complex tome of acquisition regulations, though, none of them could come up with an answer. Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN), a Blue Dog, became so frustrated with the witnesses' vacuous testimony that he questioned how such experienced witnesses could produce such unimpressive recommendations. One of the more onerous ones was to provide contractors with a "reserve fund" to cover mistakes, an idea that Cooper rightly labeled as the equivalent of a slush fund.

With hindsight, none of the witnesses' recommendations was surprising. All three of these fossils of the Cold War currently hold executive positions in defense contracting companies, which would benefit greatly from adoption of their broad suggestions. I understand that Congress may not be able to make much more of a contribution to the process of acquisition reform right now; another layer of rules to try to prevent contractor misdeeds is not the answer. I have no doubt that the cascading effects of regulation have ground down the acquisition process and helped to bring the average schedule delay of major weapon programs to its current level of 22 months. With that said, I do not believe the answer is to provide more leeway to contractors either.

Image by Flickr user laura padgett used under a Creative Commons license.