"This is deja vu, all over again. In fact, this is deja voodoo pricing by defense contractors. Two years ago, House Republican leaders moved to pump up the defense budget, and promised later reforms. The Speaker said his reform efforts would turn the Pentagon into a Triangle. Last time I looked, it's still a Pentagon," Grassley said.
In March 1983, Sen. Grassley was the first to reveal overpriced spare parts. He made the information public during a Senate Budget Committee mark-up. His revelations led to a series of reviews by Defense Department inspectors general, which concluded the spare parts overpricing phenomenon was exorbitant and widespread. Within two years of revealing these inflated prices, Sen. Grassley used this and other arguments to successfully amend the 1986 budget resolution to freeze defense spending. It has been plateaued ever since.
Today, Grassley said this new round of IG reports "will ensure that those who are clamoring for more defense spending are drowned out."
Since 1981, the following seven initiatives were designed to cure the exorbitant cost disease afflicting Pentagon management: the Carlucci Initiatives, Weinberger's "Ten Commandments," the Grace Commission, two Packard Commissions, Goldwater/Nichols, and the Defense Management Review. "They've all failed," Grassley said. "That's because the defense industry is constantly successful in watering down the reforms." He stated the latest such effort in the guise of a "reform" proposal is called the "Defense Reform Initiative."
