Chuck Grassley: “maybe the Department of Defense does not want to know the answer. The size of those paychecks might be embarrassing to…”

“maybe the Department of Defense does not want to know the answer. The size of those paychecks might be embarrassing to the Department. Then again, maybe the Department of Defense does know. I suspect that they do know. I think there is a secret list hidden in someone's safe over at the Pentagon somewhere with this information. I have an audit report that tells me that the Department of Defense may know. This is a Defense Contracting Audit Agency report entitled ``Audit of Corporate Offices, Overhead Expenses 1995.'' Here it is. It is dated March 31 of this year. Now, Mr. President, I would like to place this report in the Record, but I have been warned that it may contain proprietary company information so I am not going to do that. It tells me exactly who is on the Department of Defense payroll at McDonnell Douglas and how much each person gets. There must be reports like this on other companies as well. Taken together, all these reports would give us the information that we need. These executives are on the public payroll. They take public money. The public should know who they are and how much they get. A company has no right to take public money earmarked for executive pay and stamp it ``proprietary and confidential.'' Strictly, that is Pentagon baloney. That is something that if somebody here on the Senate floor tries to justify, then it becomes Senate baloney as far as I am concerned. The Congress has the responsibility to obtain that information.”