Special Panel for Defense Cuts Redundant at Best, Political at Worst

Last week House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO) indicated his willingness to convene a special house panel to investigate programmatic cuts in the Department of Defense.  In the view of one Hill source, this doesn’t make sense. 

The House and Senate have passed a National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) every year in modern times.  Until this year’s budget meltdown no other piece of legislation but the budget resolution had such a record.  The purpose of the NDAA is to authorize policies and funding levels for the Department of Defense. 

The NDAA is the product of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees.  Their job is to review the President’s budget each year and build an NDAA structured on the President’s Budget but with the dispositions of the Committees and the Chambers taken into account.  Cuts (or increases) to programs are expected each year as a basic function of the Armed Services Committees oversight.  Usually these are minor and are intended to prod the bureaucracy for results, but sometimes they are deeper and more substantive.    

Take, for example, Secretary Gates’ cuts to several major weapons programs last year.  The House and Senate Armed Services Committees for the most part followed suit in de-authorizing the Transformational Satellite (TSAT) program, cut over a billion in missile defenses, ending the F-22 tactical fighter, and killing the DDG-1000.  The HASC and SASC accomplished these grisly tasks with no special panel convened. In other words, additions or rescissions in funding are the duty of the full Armed Services Committees and their subcommittees.  Establishing or maintaining a special panel seems redundant at best or political cover for President Obama at worse. 

Why is it that Defense is always the first to go when Democrats are in charge?  Why doesn’t the Ways and Means Committee convene a special panel to simplify the tax code or reform entitlement spending?  Why doesn’t the Energy and Commerce Committee convene a special panel to ask why a Department of Energy is even necessary in the wake of the National Nuclear Security Administration splintering off?

However, if Chairman Skelton wants to save money at the Department of Defense without fundamentally altering the security relationship between the U.S. and the rest of the world, he might consider taking the following two steps to save money and reduce waste:

·     Hire a business consultancy like McKinsey or the Boston Consulting Group to review the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations (DFARs) and recommend which are extraneous, violate private sector best practices, and can be repealed.  The DFARs have become so complex that they prevent America’s innovative small businesses from market entry and competition.  The complexity of these regulations ensures that only the “big guys” can muster the legal and regulatory teams to stay compliant creating monopolies and driving up prices. 

·      Pass a law (1) removing tenure from the civil service, (2) requiring that only a resume is necessary to apply for a federal job, (3) allowing the government-wide use of unpaid interns, and (4) forbidding civil servants from joining a union.  Allowing underperforming workers to lose their jobs like in the private sector will spur performance and reduce inefficient overhead.  Allowing hiring by a simple resume and the use of interns will bring new blood to government service.  Furthermore, the Pentagon is not a coal mine or railroad yard, union membership is unnecessary.