Politics

Dems Use Hearing On DoD Efficiency To Bash Trump’s Budget

REUTERS/Cherie A. Thurlby/U.S. Air Force

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Democratic members of Congress spent time during a hearing on Pentagon efficiency to decry President Donald Trump’s proposed increase of military spending.

Increasing funding to the military by $54 billion, as Trump proposed in his blueprint budget last week, doesn’t make sense if the Department of Defense is wasting money on bureaucracy, according to Democratic Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings.

Cummings’ remarks came during a hearing held by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Tuesday, where lawmakers discussed whether the Pentagon buried a report about potential $125 billion worth of savings, as a Washington Post investigation claimed last December.

Trump “proposes boosting defense spending by billions of dollars,” Cummings said, “and he proposes funding this increase by slashing dozens of critical programs that promote our national security and our nation’s most vulnerable communities — the elderly, children, and the rural working class.”

Congress has a duty to fund the military, Cummings said, but the Pentagon hasn’t proved to be efficient in the past. Cummings noted that the Department of Defense is the only federal agency which has never gone through an independent audit.

“I wonder if they’re spending too much money to even do an audit,” Cummings said.

Other Democrats also stressed the importance of funding the programs Trump proposed to cut in order to fund the military. Trump’s budget proposes massive cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of State, foreign aid spending and virtually all domestic programs to offset the $54 million increase in military spending.

Florida Rep. Val Demings told fellow members of Congress to remember that “our national security is paramount,” adding that the “Trump administration fails to recognize how these draconian cuts make us less safe.”

The Department of Defense commissioned Kinsey to conduct a review on efficiency, the Washington Post reported Dec. 5, but then buried the report when it revealed that $125 billion could be saved by renegotiating contracts and changing administrative processes.

Pentagon officials virulently deny that the efficiency report, conducted by accounting consultancy Kinsey and Co. for the Defense Business Board (DBB), was in any way buried.

The report was “discussed at the highest levels” at a public meeting in January of 2015, and officials are seeking $7.9 billion in savings as a result of the findings, David Tillotson III, acting deputy chief management officer at the Pentagon told the panel.

“I think the one thing I would take unequivocal issue with is that the report was in any way suppressed,” Tillotson said. “It was actively discussed within the department at the time and it has formed the basis of discussion since that time.”

Still, Utah Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who chairs the Oversight Committee believes the study points to the Pentagon’s problem with bureaucracy and inefficiency of defense contracting.

During a tense exchange with Tillotson, Chaffetz tried to pin down how much the Kinsey study, which also had multiple subcontractors, actually cost.

“Even just doing a study, we can’t figure out what it cost and what it didn’t cost and who got paid and who didn’t do the work,” Chaffetz said.

At first, Tillotson said the DBB spent around $6 million on the study. Moments later, he corrected to say that it was $6 million additional dollars, and the total cost was around $9 million for the report and other deliverables surrounding the study.

“Whether you’re buying an F-35 or whether you’re buying a study, this is, again, the problem in the bureaucracy of the Pentagon,” Chaffetz said.

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