The Public Record
Tom Coburn is a former U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, serving from 2005 to 2015. A member of the Republican Party, Coburn was known for his fiscal conservatism and advocacy for government transparency. He was a practicing physician before entering politics, which influenced his views on healthcare and government spending. Throughout his tenure, he was a vocal critic of wasteful government expenditures and often called for reforms to improve accountability in Congress.
Some of the times when we bring in a big system, what I have noticed, especially in the Defense Department--not exclusively--is we modify a proven system that we are buying to fit our needs, rather than modifying, much as you said, General…
Effort sometimes is not enough. You have to apply maybe a different approach and a different technique.
We could not do continuous process improvement unless we could pass an audit.
I am concerned that who replaces you should have the management experience, the educational experience, the financial auditing experience to actually lead this organization.
That says we did not know what we want, we were not managing the project right.
The audit is the check to see if you have got the information systems, if you have got the financial data.
I think Mike McCord will do that. I would want somebody who knows the Defense financial management and Federal financial management.
You have reported that without fully deployed ERPs, the DOD will be unable to produce reliable financial data and auditable financial statements without resorting to heroic efforts such as data calls or manual workarounds.
The Federal Government spends $80 billion a year on IT. Forty billion of it is wasted every year.
If it flubs, everything flubs. And so, that ought to be right on the top target list.
Well it is only cost-effective if you can have real savings or you can have real accuracy, which you do not have now.
The Antideficiency Act you mentioned is a key to Congress's constitutional power to control the purse strings.
In a large business with big acquisitions, the CEO is getting a report every week, whether it is on time or on budget.
My hope is is that we will have another little followup on this in September or October on how it is going.
Leadership is the key and the whole goal is to better financially manage so that you do not waste money.
when I see almost $600 million last year in savings that would not have occurred had they not done that, to me that is real change.
Hagel ought to have on his desk every day every major acquisition program, once a week at least, where they are on their timelines, where they are on their budgets, where they are in terms of changes of requirements.
the decisionmaking process and the knowledge about how to buy IT--buying IT is hard. The other thing is, is you have to really know what you want before you order it, and I think some of the biggest problems is, is we do not know what we…
Politicians like Tom Coburn
