John Spratt: “I have an amendment included among the en bloc amendments which was specifically requested by the Department of Defense.…”

“I have an amendment included among the en bloc amendments which was specifically requested by the Department of Defense. In fact, the idea for this amendment arose at a breakfast we had with Secretary Rumsfeld at which there were complaints about limitations on their ability to manage the Pentagon. One was in the quality of personnel they have for financial management, the attraction of personnel with the requisite qualifications for handling a budget that is now approaching $400 billion, the certification of these qualifications, hiring, firing. I responded to that by calling Dr. Dov Zakheim, who is the comptroller of the Department of Defense, and telling him if he had problems like this, we were not going to be stinting about the cost of professional personnel in the Department of Defense. We need to raise the quality of management throughout the Federal Government and certainly in the Department that has the largest budget.”