John Spratt: “the first time I saw H.R. 10, the base bill, was 5 minutes before markup. As I leafed through all 609 pages of it to see…”

“the first time I saw H.R. 10, the base bill, was 5 minutes before markup. As I leafed through all 609 pages of it to see what was in it, I quickly saw there were two glaring deficiencies. The first is the National Intelligence Director. Oh, there is an NID in the base bill, but it is an NID in name only. This bill does not have the superpowers the 9/11 Commission considered necessary to pull together the 16 component parts of the intelligence community to fuse foreign and domestic intelligence. This NID is clearly lacking in those powers, and let me give two examples why I say that. One is the power of the purse, the power to make the budget. There is an old adage in the Defense Department called the golden rule, he who has the gold, makes the rules. Well, the NID in this bill does not have the gold, so he will not be making the rules that really matter. He does not have the power to set priorities or to make programmatic budget decisions. He is basically a facilitator; a coordinator. The same diminished powers apply to personnel, the hiring, firing, and promoting; putting the team together that can get the job done. He is not a CEO. He is not even a coach or a quarterback. He simply does not have the power the Commission conceived necessary. The prime mover in the 9/11 Commission report in this bill has a name but he does not have substantive powers, which begs the question: Can the NID 'effect' real change, radical change, without real power? I doubt it.”