Comments on: Senate To New DoD Team: Fix Acquisition

By: Lisa

Lisa — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 20:54:03 +0000

This is the TRUTH!! I have seen it my entire career life and even as a kid visiting my Dad at work (either while on Active Duty or after when he was a DOD employee! The DOD world almost killed him, literally, as he was one of the few who actually did his job and then picked up the slack from the slackers! and there were way too many of them!)

By: Lisa

Lisa — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 20:41:54 +0000

I worked for a Gov. Contracting Co. (Supply & Logistics) for 15 years as a corporate employee not a contract employee (all contract employees in CONUS are UNION members!!!)...There is an entrenched "Good Ol' Boy Network" all the way from the top company officials and Gov. officials down to the lowest employees who "cotract hop" getting more pay & benefits than is locally/state required by EOC due to UNION affiliation. At the expense of the Tax Payers! Not all Contracts are corrupt, but the system and the "Entrenched employees" and "Gov. Good Ol'Boys" are so far up each others butts the corruption and Overpayment is downright disgusting! Until "New Blood" is allowed in and "New Thinking" (common sense) is brought about, the Money Pit and Political Brown Nosing will keep being the sucking black hole it has always been...In the meantime the American Soldiers/Vets can't afford to live on their pay much less have useful and safe equipment to do their jobs!! Glad I no longer am in that corrupt field!!

By: Janice Julius

Janice Julius — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 17:13:57 +0000

stop payment to vetrans with NON military illnesses of OLD age. stop payment to subsequent wives that were NOT married during the military career.… like soc. sec. must be married 10yrs on active duty to qualify for survivor benefit.

By: Janice Julius

Janice Julius — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 17:11:31 +0000

save millions of DOD money, stop the retainer checks to wives that were NOT wives during the military career. like soc. sec. must be married 10yrs of active duty service. Do NOT pay veterans for NON service connected illness of OLD age.

By: dsueii

dsueii — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 17:06:35 +0000

All the answers to acquisition problems are in the comments above mine today. It doesn’t take a genius to ferret them out and they should be quidelines for action if acquisition is to be improved, a big “if.” However most will be ignored I’m sure because of the lucid truth that Wayne points out above. With the possible exception of Sen Webb and one or two others no one in Congress knows what should be done and all they can do is make inane statements like those of Levin. Real change coming? Not a chance.

By: Novi res

Novi res — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:10:56 +0000

the country “can’t afford these kinds of inefficiencies.” Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.)

I am ashamed to live in Michigan.

By: Wayne

Wayne — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 14:14:04 +0000

“the country “can’t afford these kinds of inefficiencies.” Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.)

I know of no other inefficiency greater than the United States Congress.

By: Bill Carey

Bill Carey — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 13:36:01 +0000

I don’t think the problem is with the contract or the contractor as much as with the tendency for the buyer to want all the bells and whistles and get personally involved with ego in the project. And when the facts begin to indicate poor decisions, the project is pushed forward anyway, with additional bells and whistles rather than practical changes.

By: Tony Conner

Tony Conner — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 12:22:34 +0000

There is no way to fix the DOD acquisition system with the fundamental contracting guideleines in place. The DOD can’t write a fool proof contract and many times it is cheaper to let the contractor finish the job and scrap the results then cancel the contract.
The Federal Acquisition Regulations have to be overhauled, but I doubt the DOD has the proper
personnel in place to do the job. The DOD loves degrees for technical personnel, but their legal department has many shortcomings.

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 10:21:42 +0000

“These [acquisition] problems have reached crisis proportions,” noted the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.). He also said at the beginning of the hearing that the country “can’t afford these kinds of inefficiencies.”

I find it interesting that these Senator’s can hold other “accountable” and not hold themsleves “accountable”. How remarkable..

By: DOD employee

DOD employee — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 05:17:24 +0000

I disagree with the “DOD overmanning” statements found here. I believe that the issue is NOT with the number of people DOD employs but with the number of inept personnel within the system. There are far too many people within the employ of Federal Service that don’t pull their fair share of the load, take hour and a half lunches, two 30 minute coffee breaks, then knock off 30 minutes early. It happens EVERY day with the DOD. Heaven forbid if you then try and document someones poor performance. After years of inflated evalutions from managers who were too afraid to do their jobs properly, if you try and be truthful you just might find yourself at the wrong end of the table trying to justify your actions. Either way, you won’t get rid of the poor performing employee.

By: sonar-tech

sonar-tech — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 03:24:28 +0000

The acquisitions system is broken — and the solution is not as simple as increasing or decreasing contractors or government. The defense lobby, coupled with the industry’s consolidation has completely destroyed the potential for a “free market” system. The competitive bidding process is overcome by lack of accountability (for budget/schedule/technical). Technical oversight is mainly valuable as a support tool for political interests. Success on the government end is measured by how much money can be obtained for contracts, and punishment for failure is a non-existent concept.

By: Acquisition Professional

Acquisition Professional — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 02:19:18 +0000

DoD is inefficient and needs to be held accountable. Many senior military personnel and civilians leaders are unqualified to hold their positions. In some cases DoD need to change the promotion systems and require some level of industry certification if you are going to be managing $50M of my tax dollars or lead those managing a portion of it. The President is correct “… there needs to be accountability.”

By: Babs

Babs — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:55:57 +0000

I know that, fraud, waste and abuse goes on in the Air Force acquisition offices. Moreover, good employees career’s are hurt and they are overlooked for promotions while supervisors use excuses such as; the reason you cannot get promoted is because you don’t have a degree. To fill jobs, supervisors do a request by name to civilian personnel and whoever name they request in house gets promoted or is hired. I hope and pray that President Barack Obama changes the way the Government plays with people’s lives. I know that we are in trying times, and with base closures things are going to get worse before its gets better. I know a lady that has worked for the government for 20 years, 12 of the years was with the Army and 8 years with Air Force. She has been in turmoil since she left the Army and has tried really hard to go back. The Army did not treat her different because of her ethnic culture. The Air Force does not follow their own guidelines they just place people in positions as EEO, ADR etc for quotas. They don’t promote people fairly and need to spend money on educating their workforce, not tell them there is no funds available for training. I’m glad that we have clean out the Whitehouse. In the next four years we need to clean out the Senate and Congress because all they are going to do is make investments for themselves, family and their friends. People please open your eyes and see what is going on with the Federal government, here in America.

By: Former Contracting Officer

Former Contracting Officer — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 23:38:34 +0000

Opinion:

Unchecked downsizing and “turn-key” outsourcing practices resulted in the loss of too many valuable domestic defense production resources and skilled personnel.

Rebuilding Defense Department infrastructure is vital to both our defense preparedness and our future economic strength.

It is an investment in our future.

By: DLA

DLA — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 23:33:44 +0000

The acquisition process is archaic. Contractors are not empowered to award contracts, even though they could per their appointment letter. Contracts over a certain dollar level have to go through a “legal review”. Which causes needless lead time for the contract to be awarded for an item. Long term contracts on a new item take a year and 1/2 to be awarded. The services submit packages, data, etc.. and even have DLA piggy back off the contracts. This even doesn’t fix the problem. I hope someone has the brains to fix this problem. Ask anyone not scared to lose their job at DLA and they will talk about all kinds of red tape that congress has enacted that causes serious untold conditions to our services. And sometimes these items are already in the system and approved by DLA!!!! The legal and PR idiots will mention safety considerations and throw a “spin factor” on it. If someone would request a poll on it without fear of a backlash. It would open up a can of pit vipers that would shock America on how DLA supports the troops.

By: Willie

Willie — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 22:47:01 +0000

Fred Simmons, I don’t know where you worked Within DOD, where there “was WAY to many” employees…that’s not true. I am also a retired Federal Government employee, I was a 0346 Logistician working in the acquisition field and there were NOT too many people…you are either a liar or you hid in a cubicle for your entire so called government career; if in fact you were a federal government DOD civilian employee. You sound like a contractor or someone who works for a contractor.

The Military develops a need for equipment, ammunition, munitions and weapons systems based on the threat that they face…didn’t you know that? They’re not making this stuff up just to have something to do.

This country continues to get itself into trouble by “electing” senators, presidents and other government officials that have no idea what they are talking about relative to the defense of this country…Dummies like you put them into office. I am convinced that a prerequisite for ALL of our elected official’s should be at least one full tour in the military as a grunt. Maybe we’ll be able to eliminate pinheads like you.

By: Militor

Militor — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 22:20:49 +0000

Pearl Harbor=http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/myths/Missing_Carriers.html
Winston Churchill tried to warn the U.S.A.
Roosevelt wanted a reason to get into the WAR.
The military machine was all ready going. GM was wringing their hands. The U.S.A. came out of ww1 and ww11 and Korea and Viet-Nam in debt up to their nuts. Thanks to Chase Bank. The Lend Lease was a fiasco! We have a war about every 20 years.Just enough time to pay off the last war.
And raise some more Sargents to kill. And retire the veterans of the last war. What a price to pay. Death and enslavement. And never to protect the U.S.A. . But to make others richer. With American blood. Wait till 2012.
Israel will go crazy in Gaza and Lebanon. They will have finished the last batch of tanks. Built their oil pipeline. Water etc. The Russians are gonna lose their lease on the Black sea Navy bases. Also Pakistan, they are melting down baby. Things are heating up. I hope the Pentagon gets their act together asap.

By: Bart Kesselring

Bart Kesselring — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 20:42:38 +0000

That was supposed to be Sea. In any event one nuclear strike on Norfolk could take out every ship there, even a well placed Dirty bomb could make the ships so radioactive they could not be used.

By: Bart Kesselring

Bart Kesselring — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 20:38:26 +0000

Were it not for the two carriers out to see when Pearl Harbor was attacked we would not have had a Navy in the Pacific at the beginning of U.S. entry into the war. Warner and Webb only real interest is Va. or more to the point getting Va. voters. Greed is what is killing the U.S. as it did Rome.