Billions for fraud and cronyism- not one red cent for oversight
As… impolitic… as it seems, Lurita Alexis Doan, the new Bush appointee to head the giant General Services Administration, which oversees over $56 billion in Defense, Homeland Security, and other federal government contracts, including most federal infrastructure spending, wants to cut the budget of that agency’s Inspector General’s office, and has called the IG’s efforts to rein in waste, fraud and abuse at one of the federal government’s biggest spending agencies to be akin to “terrorism”. Amusingly, it turns out that Brian Miller, the head of the IG’s office now had himself previously prosecuted terrorism, specifically, on the Moussaoui case.
When caught red-handed in her efforts at trying to encourage, or at least condone, corruption, of course, all Ms. Doan says she really wants to do is “make the IG live within its budget”. Well, no: the purpose of the IG is to make sure that the gigantic GSA budget is actually spent on what it’s supposed to. But, naturally, Ms. Doan, a former federal contractor herself, knows bloody well that the last thing that her friends in the private sector sucking on the government teat want is robust oversight over their contracts.
This one’s easy. Ms. Doan should soon be receiving summons to appear before virtually every Congressional committee that has jurisdiction over GSA spending… by my calculation… that’s all of them. She should then explain her own efforts to rein in waste, fraud and abuse, and demonstrate why they will be more effective than the independent Inspector General (and indeed, why her experience as a contractor is more relevant to this function than Mr. Miller’s as a prosecutor.) And, failing to so explain, she should then be duly humiliated, preferably on a daily basis, until such time as she either resigns, or relents. If necessary, for the next two years.
The Bush Administration in a nutshell, ladies and gentlemen. Sadly, it will be here all week. Don’t forget to bribe your contract officers.
December 2nd, 2006 at 9:36 am
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