On the recordApril 28, 2010
This body took an important step today by passing the IMPROVE Acquisitions Act, which will bring badly needed reforms to the defense procurement process. The Pentagon, of course, is legendary for bureaucratic inefficiency, cost overruns, and even outright corruption in its purchasing practices. Remember the $640 toilet seat that the Navy bought back in the 1980s? Remember our soldiers in Iraq sifting through scrap heaps for makeshift body armor? For too long, Mr. Speaker, the Pentagon has been the irresponsible teenager who gets a ridiculously generous allowance, loses part of it, and then spends the rest on junk food. With this new bill, though, mom and dad will begin to exercise some oversight over that allowance. Given the size of the DOD budget and the nature of its mission, it is about time. It's remarkable that up until now, there's been no effective performance metric system to assure that taxpayers are getting value for their defense dollars. We're living through a time, Mr. Speaker, when nearly every American family is tightening its belt and making sure that every dollar it spends is on something it truly needs. We owe it to these families to ensure that the government agency charged with keeping them safe is doing the same. As pleased as I am with the passage of the IMPROVE Act, I can't help but think that we are nibbling around the edges of a much, much larger problem.
