Government Laxness in Contracting

E-mail to Congress:

EIN News says "U.S. Military Contractor Oversight 'Too Lax'. A major trouble spot is the business systems and procedures that companies use to bill the government. The numbers are eye-popping. Defense auditors have found at least $6 billion in questionable charges generated by sloppy accounting or, worse, contractors trying to bilk the military. (cbsnews.com)".

This is a continuing major criticism of government. Congress spends considerable time debating and establishing new legislation and then turns the operation over to an Administrative Agency. If the legislation is a mandate, many times Congress neglects to specify penalties, including jail time, for non-adherence. Similarly, the Administrative Agencies are negligent in applying the law. This seems incomprehensible, considering the fact that there are a preponderance of lawyers in government, who have been trained in contract law.

Congress must accept a responsibility to see that the laws they have passed are put into effect. For example, if the Department of Defense is not properly handling its military contracts, Congress should not ignore the situation. Rather, they should chastise the DOE and threaten additional legislation to remove incompetent DOE employees, as may be determined by a Congressional Committee.

Considering contractors, some may be encouraged to dishonesty by lack of government attention. For those cases where such dishonesty is illegal, the contracting company should be chastised and added to a "questionable integrity" list. Those individuals within the contracting company who have been responsible for the illegality, should be prosecuted toward imprisonment. Fines should be avoided for individuals, since they would usually be absorbed by the employer, who would in turn consider such payments as a "cost of doing business" and add it to subsequent pricing.