Daniel Akaka: “for the last few weeks, the administration has increased its rhetoric about a looming budget shortfall at the Department…”

“for the last few weeks, the administration has increased its rhetoric about a looming budget shortfall at the Department of Defense unless Congress passes an emergency spending bill. Most recently, the President threatened to lay off hundreds of thousands of Federal workers at DoD to make up for any shortfalls. This is simply unacceptable. The Pentagon said as late as last week that the Department has sufficient funds in order to keep our fighting men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan supplied through late February to mid-March of next year. Nonetheless, the administration continues to threaten to layoff workers to make up for a non-existent gap in funding. The Department of Defense should not use Federal employees as pawns because the White House is playing politics with the budget. As Chairman of the Governmental Affairs Oversight of Government Management and Federal Workforce Subcommittee and the Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee, I have made oversight Government contracting a priority. In several hearings, I have heard officials and whistleblowers testify about the systemic waste, fraud and abuse, in many contracts. If the administration wants to save money, it should start increasing oversight over contracts and drop those that are not performing.”