Claire McCaskill

Especially when you look at the time period that passed before the contract was given and if you get a heads-up in May 2010 that the building is not needed and the contracts are not executed until the following year, it really shows a…

However, there is still a long way to go.

Contracting is the commander's business.

I know. You are doing really well.

I need you to tell me some places you have done that, and I will promise you this.

If you do the right risk assessment, you do not end up having to pay off the bad guys

I do not think anybody realizes that your testimony just now in my world, balloons should have dropped from the ceiling, because when I started in this, no one knew any of that.

At what point do we throw in the towel?

Thank you very much. Let me start before I begin asking questions and acknowledge that everyone is making progress.

Unfortunately, they do not apply to Afghanistan now where we are continuing to hear about contracting problems.

I want to thank the Chairman and the Ranking Member for holding this important meeting.

I worry that these audits do not get read.

Let me give you an opportunity, Mr. Ginman, to explain how in the world this thing got built when the people on the ground were saying stop, do not do this, we do not need it, and it will not be used.

It is hard to believe that I have been at this for over 6 years working on wartime contracting.

I would like to find out... the government is failing to collect from food service contracts.

I was shocked to learn was this bizarre thing we have in the Federal Government where one agency sells to another agency and makes money off of it.

It is a counter-incentive and we have to figure out a way to clean that up.

I mean, we had a witness in front of one our hearings that basically was not completely truthful about something. Guess what she got that year. She got her performance bonus. I mean, it was ridiculous!

I wish that you had data that would show that there has been some impact on performance bonuses from something like using strategic sourcing contracts.

Until we incentivize this behavior, the incentive is to buy a lot at the end of the year so it looks like your budget is tight.

With the technology that is available, if it is just about chasing these guys, law-enforcement-wise, around the country, we are never going to get the results that consumers deserve on this.

I think if this were offered by a carrier, you know, I am just shaking my head that an American carrier has not tried to adopt one of these technologies because I think it is such a winner in an open, capitalistic, competitive market.

Well, so you are saying that you legally couldn't adopt Mr. Stein's technology?

Nobody is going to call and say, the airline let me know my flight was late.

And so let me just say for the record that the first company that is smart enough to do this in the United States, I am switching carriers to that one.