Ron Johnson

There is one other area I want to talk about, because a number of people have mentioned how disruptive the government shutdowns, the budget dysfunction is in terms of being able to obtain an audit.

Again, I understand. The accounting department is going to have to account for it in some way.

Well, not to beat a dead horse, but once you start doing it, they will be accountable and they will get into line.

I want to go to a statement that Senator Tester talked about, whether the Department of Defense is too big to be audited.

And again, coming from the private sector, you are never going to get an unqualified opinion if you do not have prior years' experience.

How can that be? Tell me about that.

I think leadership is key, but the way you are really going to get results is if you hold people accountable.

Is part of the problem there because as those systems are systemwide and they become massive, it becomes pretty difficult to get your arms around that?

Certainly in public companies, they have the necessary pressure.

I mean, it should be a requirement.

The first charge of the Congress is to defend the country.

Get off of this idea that we are not going to conduct an audit until we know we are going to have a clean audit, and instead, use an audit as a real management tool, which is what it really should be.

I would rather spend money on the audit, realize what a disaster a particular unit is, or how successful a particular unit is.

The sooner we do it, the better, from my standpoint.

You need to use the audit as a tool.

Why delay 3, 4, or 5 years?

I totally disagree with that assessment.

You cannot manage what you cannot measure.

How much of the Defense Department has undergone an audit, what percentage?

You know what you get out of it? A lot of management pressure to correct the deficiencies, which I am not seeing right now.

I do not see how spending money on an audit to determine how bad you really are is a waste of money.

The audit should be used as a management tool to be conducted to tell you where you have deficiencies.

The fact that our largest Federal department with nearly a $700 billion budget still cannot comply with the law after several decades is a failure that rests squarely on us, the Congress.

Let me just say, you are making my point, that you should just go ahead and audit.

I would hope they have done that. I mean, again, that is Marketing 101.