Military.com is reporting that the Pentagon may soon have more input into the procurement process, so that congress isn’t spending on things they don’t need. Sen. Joe Manchin, (D-W.VA) said: “There has got to be a more effective and efficient method of procurement. When [President] Eisenhower said ‘beware of the military industrial complex,’ man he knew what he was talking about … We force stuff on you all that we know you don’t want.”
Army Chief of Staff General Raymond Odierno agreed, saying: “We are still having to procure systems we don’t need,” Odierno said. “We spend hundreds of millions of dollars on tanks that we simply don’t have the structure for anymore.”
In recent years Congress has been forcing the procurement of Abrams tank upgrades, which the Pentagon has said that they don’t need. Still, Congress passed in National Defense Authorization Act for 2015 $120 million in Abrams tank upgrades. The Army and Marines currently have about 9,000 of the tanks.
The Army has been pushing for years to suspend tank building, but congress has always pushed back, procuring hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into spending. “When we are talking about tight budgets a couple of hundred million dollars is a lot of money,” Odierno said.
“There are lots of people that have looked at procurement reform. And the one thing that has been frustrating to me is as the chief of staff of the Army is how little authority and responsibility that I have in the procurement process. I have a say in requirements, to some extent, but I have very little say.”
Military officials reported that, despite sequestration cuts in growth of government spending, we have the ability to win any major war, deter the threat of a second, as well as protect the homeland simultaneously.
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