{"id":59757,"date":"2020-03-27T13:32:47","date_gmt":"2020-03-27T13:32:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smg.go-vip.net\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2020\/03\/27\/america-should-save-emergency-spending-for-emergencies\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T00:28:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T00:28:21","slug":"america-should-save-emergency-spending-for-emergencies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/commentary\/2020\/03\/27\/america-should-save-emergency-spending-for-emergencies\/","title":{"rendered":"America should save emergency spending for emergencies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The coronavirus outbreak<\/a> is exposing the many ways our infrastructure, economy and health care industry were unprepared to combat an epidemic. To make up for that shortfall, the White House and Congress reached a deal on a more than $2 trillion stimulus package. While we are still combing through all of the details of the legislation, it includes direct payments to people in need alongside corporate handouts for companies like Boeing<\/a>. But as these corporations fly away with our taxpayer dollars, we should remember and apply lessons learned to avoid emergency spending authorities from being misused and how to best budget in an emergency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In what can often feel rare in government work, the last major stimulus included a model of successful oversight. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009<\/a> ultimately unleashed $831 billion in spending and tax cuts. While numerous watchdogs worried that there would be massive waste and fraud and corruption in how contracts and spending were awarded, the law also created the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board<\/a>, which set some of the highest standards for spending transparency and analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, the level of fraud was 0.001 percent, and even opponents of the stimulus, like former Chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee Darrell Issa, R-Calif., concluded that its various transparency, accountability and reporting requirements should be replicated across the federal government. Fortunately, it looks like a similar model will be put in place for this latest package as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are also plenty of cases where emergency spending and authorities haven\u2019t had sufficient oversight. And the biggest elephant in the room in that regard is the Pentagon\u2019s overseas contingency operations, or OCO, account \u2014 a fund that was established for unplanned military contingencies and disaster spending but in practice has been funding not just wars but also non-emergency needs for 19 years and lacks guardrails to make sure that the spending is actually meeting its mission. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the Congressional Research Service pointed out, historically this kind of funding mechanism was used for the initial stages of wars, as was the case for Vietnam and the first Gulf War. Under those practices, the Congressional Budget Office found, between 1970 and 2000, OCO-like spending accounted for only 2 percent of overall Pentagon spending. The Congressional Budget Office told Congress that reliance on this kind of off-budget funding hurt planning and made it more likely the Defense Department would pursue lower priority, more expensive programs that wouldn\u2019t normally make the cut.<\/p>\n\n\n\t