[Goose]

If they can find a way to streamline the defense contracting process and hold contractors accountable, I'd be down with that.  But that requires specific knowledge and experience.  I imagine SecDef may just hand out 8% reductions across the board like sequestration.

The performance of the office of the Secretary of Defense has been very poor since about 1992. Both the "business" side of the house (acquisition, personnel etc.) and the strategic performance of the office has IMO been seriously inadequate. Goldwater-Nichols created a situation where the Secretary of Defense was essentially responsible for "everything". It hasn't worked at all well, overall. We are now "jointly" incompetent strategically instead of individually :-).

It isn't a new problem. Solving it is not going to be quick or easy. It is fair to say that the actual spending of the defense budget has not been well managed for a very long time. IMO while audits are "nice to have", it is much more important that we have competent people in the defense department that realize RESULTS are all that matter, not appearances and bureaucratic niceties. Massive subject, too big for the Cardboard to solve :-).

[Goose]

If they can find a way to streamline the defense contracting process and hold contractors accountable, I'd be down with that.  But that requires specific knowledge and experience.  I imagine SecDef may just hand out 8% reductions across the board like sequestration.

The performance of the office of the Secretary of Defense has been very poor since about 1992. Both the "business" side of the house (acquisition, personnel etc.) and the strategic performance of the office has IMO been seriously inadequate. Goldwater-Nichols created a situation where the Secretary of Defense was essentially responsible for "everything". It hasn't worked at all well, overall. We are now "jointly" incompetent strategically instead of individually :-).

It isn't a new problem. Solving it is not going to be quick or easy. It is fair to say that the actual spending of the defense budget has not been well managed for a very long time. IMO while audits are "nice to have", it is much more important that we have competent people in the defense department that realize RESULTS are all that matter, not appearances and bureaucratic niceties. Massive subject, too big for the Cardboard to solve :-).