McCaskill: There are Budget Savings to Be Found at Pentagon

Amid negotiations of the federal government’s budget, U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill questioned Admiral James Winnefeld, Jr., Commander of U.S. Northern Command and General Douglas M. Fraser, Commander of U.S. Southern Command about the places in the budget where they have identified savings for their respective commands in a hearing in the Senate Armed Services Committee. McCaskill believes that efforts to reduce government spending should include the Pentagon budget, which, excluding spending for overseas contingencies like Afghanistan operations, has grown by over $200 billion in less than 10 years and exceeds half a trillion dollars.

“The Secretary of Defense has asked the branches of the military to look at $100 billion in cuts through efficiencies programs. Can both of you briefly give me what your top line cuts are that you have identified for the Secretary of Defense in your command?” McCaskill asked in today’s hearing.

McCaskill drew on the example of Department of Defense counternarcotics training contracts in South America, which have cost billions of taxpayer dollars over the last several years, with little oversight for the important mission of building up counternarcotics capabilities in foreign militaries. Many of the same companies carrying out the training in South America are now executing major police and military training contracts in Afghanistan. McCaskill, who also chairs the Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, held a hearing last year that revealed that billions of dollars are being spent on this effort with few assurances of success and significant confusion over who is in charge.

“We are trying to get additional information on this contract spending, but it didn’t appear at that hearing that there was a good handle on performance measures, what was actually going on and, frankly, a lot of the same companies are resurfacing with very big contracts in Afghanistan,” she said.

The responsibility for foreign counternarcotics activities is shared and often shifted between the Department of Defense, Department of State, United States Agency for International Development, the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Today, McCaskill used this as an example of how improving these contracting practices, especially at the Pentagon, could mean real savings for the federal government, without sacrificing the funding for our national security priorities overseas.

“My sense is that there is money to be saved, there are efficiencies that can still be gained in terms of how we are mounting this effort, the overlap, and the lack of consistency as to who’s in charge and why,” she said.