GOP wants to cut waste but increase Defense spending

A recent House Budget Committee hearing on wasteful and inefficient government spending focused considerable attention on problems at the Defense Department, which could complicate the GOP congressional leadership's plans to increase defense spending in fiscal 2001.

Republican leaders are committed to drafting a fiscal 2001 budget resolution that boosts President Clinton's request for $292.2 billion in fiscal 2001 budget authority for defense discretionary spending, and a total of $306 billion for all defense related appropriations-including those by the Energy Department-next year. But the GOP is still debating where to set the fiscal 2001 discretionary spending level, which Clinton proposes to set at $614 billion in budget authority.

Comptroller General David Walker, head of the GAO, told the House Budget panel he would give the Defense Department only a "D+" in the area of financial management, and cited overpayment of defense contractors and acquisition of weapons systems, spare parts and non-combat items as areas where "fundamental problems continue to exist," not only in how those purchases are made, but in the military's failure to use "commercial best financial accounting practices" that are standard in the private sector.

Walker further testified, to the obvious frustration of Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich, R-Ohio, that it would take the Defense Department until at least 2003 to be able to provide the department's inspector general and the GAO with consolidated financial statements that accurately account for how defense dollars are spent and detail the extent of financial management problems at the Pentagon and its contractors.

Defense Department Deputy Inspector General Donald Mancuso also testified about how Congress has contributed to the problem through the annual appropriations process by appropriating money for items and programs the department does not need or has not requested.

In the statement Mancuso submitted to the committee, he also mentioned Congress' rejection of the department's request in the last two administration budgets for additional base realignment and closure authority, and noted that the department "is still burdened with the cost of operating more bases than are needed to support the force structure."