The Washington Post's 'Top Secret America, Inc.', Articles Identify Problems Caused by Federal Government's Over-reliance on Contractors; Congress Strives to Fix Those Problems, Despite Opposition from Contractors, OMB

WASHINGTON, July 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- "Although following the earlier work of AFGE's own Tim Shorrock, the author of Spies for Hire (Simon & Shuster, 2008)," declared AFGE National President John Gage, "The Washington Post's three-part investigation of 'Top Secret America' is a helpful reminder to the American people of the federal government's dangerous and wasteful overreliance on private contractors for the performance of national security functions that are so sensitive and important that they never should have been outsourced."

"Reading the first two installments, one might give up hope that we could ever make sure that the public interest is not subordinated to the interests of private contractors," continued Gage. "Fortunately, a path towards careful, measured reform has already been laid out. Thanks in large part to House and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairmen Ike Skelton (D-MO) and Carl Levin (D-MI), the Department of Defense (DoD) is required to establish an inventory of all its service contracts to determine which ones cost more than they should, are poorly performed, or include functions that are simply inappropriate for contractor performance (e.g., preparing budgets, developing regulations, supervising contractors); and then give 'special consideration' to insourcing those contracts."

"As we might expect, contractors and their allies in the Pentagon, knowing that increased visibility will lead to increased accountability, have slowed the contractor inventory effort to a halt outside of the Army," lamented Gage. "And contractors and their Republican allies have proposed amendments that would, effectively, end Secretary Robert Gates' insourcing effort, even though that would result in higher costs to taxpayers and put America's security at risk. According to the Army, almost one-half of its contractor workforce performs functions that are either inherently governmental, and never should have been contracted out, or are closely associated with inherently governmental functions, and likely never should have been contracted out. The Army is not unique in its overreliance on contractors—just unique to the extent it has documented the problem.

"Thanks to House and Senate Financial Services Appropriations Subcommittee Chairmen Jose Serrano (D-NY) and Richard Durbin (D-IL), the non-DoD agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), are required to develop the same contractor inventories and insourcing policies," continued Gage. "Although initially indicating it would comply with the law, the Office of Management and Budget is now trying to gut the inventory requirement so that the American people will never know which contracts cost too much or include important or sensitive functions. Frustrated by this defiance, the House of Representatives, in late May, overwhelmingly passed an amendment offered by Representative John Sarbanes (D-MD) to reaffirm the inventory and insourcing requirements for DHS and other agencies, and the Senate is poised to do the same."

SOURCE American Federation of Government Employees