{"id":58497,"date":"2019-07-11T16:42:31","date_gmt":"2019-07-11T16:42:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2019\/07\/11\/its-not-too-late-to-include-financial-reforms-in-the-ndaa\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T00:19:41","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T00:19:41","slug":"its-not-too-late-to-include-financial-reforms-in-the-ndaa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/commentary\/2019\/07\/11\/its-not-too-late-to-include-financial-reforms-in-the-ndaa\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not too late to include financial reforms in the NDAA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Defense is the No. 1 responsibility of the federal government. Every year, Congress considers the National Defense Authorization Act<\/a>, legislation that is critical to national defense, military readiness and support for our service members. Due to the bill\u2019s significance, as well as its substantial price tag, it is crucial that Congress be conscientious about making sure taxpayer dollars are being efficiently and appropriately spent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m proud of the exceptional work done every day by the men and women of the armed services. I\u2019m committed to supporting them and to making sure that our military is second to none. But that doesn\u2019t mean we can\u2019t do more to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. Oversight is critical not only for the sake of good governance, but also because every dollar wasted at the Pentagon is a dollar that isn\u2019t going to defense efforts or to support our men and women in uniform. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Department of Defense has a long history of wasteful spending. For nearly four decades, I\u2019ve worked to expose it. That effort has included calling attention to specific cases of outrageous spending, including $640 toilet seats in the 1980s, $117 soap dishes in the 1990s, a $43 million gas station in the early 2010s, and most recently,$1,280 heated cups and $14,000 toilet seat lids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My oversight has also included efforts to address fundamental issues with the DoD\u2019s accounting systems and its inability to produce a clean audit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past several months, new light has been shined on another serious problem at the DoD: potential fraud in contracting practices<\/a>. Price gouging on spare parts has been something I\u2019ve worked on throughout my time in the Senate, but it has gained traction recently due to a report released by the DoD\u2019s Office of Inspector General titled \u201cReview of Parts Purchased from TransDigm Group, Inc.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report was narrow in scope, reviewing only one contractor \u2014 TransDigm<\/a>. In total, it analyzed 113 contracts between January 2015 and January 2017. It reviewed 47 spare parts the DoD purchased from TransDigm. In that short period of time, from this single contractor, the DoD IG found that taxpayers were overcharged by more than $16 million out of a total of nearly $30 million in contracts. <\/p>\n\n\n\t