WP: Contractors Face More Scrutiny, Pinched Purses: Democrats Vow to Examine Large Deals

[DeepModem Mom]

Contractors Face More Scrutiny, Pinched Purses
Democrats Vow to Examine Large Deals
By Griff Witte and Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 28, 2006; Page D01

After riding high for five years, government contractors are bracing themselves for increased oversight, tighter budgets and stepped-up regulations as Democrats take over on Capitol Hill and vow to keep a closer eye on how companies spend taxpayer dollars.

Every company that does business with the government could feel the impact, but contractors that benefited most from work in Iraq and Afghanistan, from homeland security initiatives or from Hurricane Katrina are especially likely to be under the microscope. Big-ticket weapons programs are also expected to garner special attention, and it may become more difficult to get a no-bid contract, according to industry observers.

"The pendulum has clearly swung back in a hard way," said David Nadler, an attorney for government contractors with the Dickstein Shapiro law firm. "Everything contractors do is going to be subject to scrutiny. They need to understand that they're in a different environment."

Most incoming chairs of congressional committees have not said specifically which contracting areas they intend to scrutinize. But the Government Accountability Office, Congress's investigative arm, gave Hill leaders some ideas earlier this month.

In a 44-page look at areas in need of oversight, GAO investigators focused substantial attention on contractors. The government spent $388 billion on contracts last year, the GAO said, and much of that money is exposed to "potential waste and misuse" because of the way the government buys goods and services....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/27/AR2006112701286.html

[Stargazer99]

1. Oh, poor babies!

You think if one of us peons pulled the same crap as Halliburton, etc that there would be an ounce of sympathy from the Rep/Cons? Personal responsibility only seems to reside with a person, apparently Rep/Cons think business is immune from responsibility. I'm going to relish the investigations...long overdue!I'm tired of the taxpayer being forced to kiss the rear end of this administration that is so enamoured of business without controls.

[shanti]

2. whoo boy

watch them scatter like cockroaches. this train wreck will not be pretty.

[exlrrp]

12. Yeah but it will be fun to watch!!

Pretty is in the eye of the beholder. If I'm beholding Democrats scrutinizing government contractors, it could be very pretty--for America--and ugly for the contractors.
This is one of the things Ive been most looking forward to when the Dems take over.
I'm figuratively popping the metaphorical popcorn now

[symbolman]

3. Don't expect to get ANY money back

each time a Repig gets into office they clean out the grain stores, and it's all SPENT somehow..

Never seen it fail, and they get more each time, this time it's astronomical.. time to INVADE some of these offshore banks in those Islands and GET our MONEY BACK.

[niceypoo]

4. I get this feeling that Haliburton is going to go the ENRON route...

I bet haliburton ends up just like enron as soon as Bush is out of office. Collapsed in a heap of corruption and greed. I can only imagine what their books look like.

[PegDAC]

5. Which set? n/t

[heinz]

6. Yeh, I bet their worried

Yeh I bet those contractors are worried. Probably worried about which Democrats they need to grease first. Well we won, we won Congress and wow, thats just fantastic, if we can hold it. If we allow are people to start taking kickbacks like the Repugs are doing from contractors we might as well kiss it all goodbye next election cycle.

[Frank Cannon]

7. The whole "no-bid" thing is insane and needs to stop

These "no-bid" contracts have always defied the simplest common sense, and I can't believe that it's been tolerated by the American people for as long as it has. And yet, hear the Republicans whine about government spending. Well, I've got your government spending right here, in the form of several "no-bid" contracts.

Would you hire a "no-bid" contractor to fix your car or the roof of your house? Would you hire a "no-bid" contractor to do ANYTHING for your small business? That's crazy! So why should the rules be different for our government?

It's time to drown the "no-bid" contract, kicking and screaming, in a bathtub.

[livingonearth]

8. I could not agree more.

The conservative rethugs always preach free market capitalism and competition. Well, nothing like this no-bid crap to squash competition and destroy the free market. It's another example of that old repuke hypocrisy rearing it's ugly. These are the ones who think it OK to bail out savings and loan cronies with our tax dollars(first Bush), but complain they don't want to spend our tax money on anything that comes back to the average person. Might I emphasize: this is just one example!

[marmar]

9. Good....

Get Halliburton's snout out of the public trough. They've got to be the world's biggest welfare recipient.

[elocs]

10. Two years will go by fast. Can Democrats do all that they have promised and vowed?

This is all well and good, and there are whoops and attaboys every time another promise to investigate comes up, but realistically, is there really enough time? The promising is the easy part because you know you are going to get hurrahs, but it's the doing that is more problematic.
I am not saying that it cannot be done, but it is so easy to get caught up in the momentum that we are going to right all of the wrongs of the past 6 years in just 2 years (minus recesses, breaks, and foot-dragging). Has anybody given this any thought?

[exlrrp]

13. Not if they impeach

Seeems to me like the problem is they can impeach or do everything else, so theyre picking doing everthing else.

This is the right choice--the democratic leadeship remembers full well how Clinton's impeachment trial sucked the oxygen out of everything else. It created a huge gridlock that did not go away untill after it was over. The lines were drawn.

We need Bi Partisan consensus to get a lot of things done and they know this won't hasppen in the middle of an impeachment trial. They know that, even assuming every democrat voted for removal, at least 15 Republican Senators would have to vote for it also. This would be immediate political suicide for them. You might as well ask them to slash their wrists for the good of their country as ask them to approve removing Bush and Cheney and making Pelosi President. And no one knows that better than Pelosi.

I think Bush is guilty of impeachable crimes as much as anyone but some other things need to take priority--like stopping the war. When American and Iraqis are dying every day, why should the main effort be elsewhere? Whats more importanty? Lives or political points? Thank God Pelosi gets it.

The choice of stopping the war first or ipeaching Bsh first seems like a no-brainer--do the thing that saves lives immediately. The war has a life of its own now, it will not end n ow without a lot of focus, time and money.

Ending the war is the moral imperative and thank God the D's are working on that first

[elocs]

14. Impeach and Bush walks. The Senate will not convict. There are not 67 votes.

Democrats here really need to come out of fantasyland and let go of their wet dream that Bush will be impeached and convicted and then tried for war crimes and sent to the Hague. Reality check: it ain't going to happen and fortunately Pelosi is smart enough and pragmatic enough to realize that. Impeachment is simple and the Democrats obviously have the votes to do it the same way the Republicans were able to do it to Clinton. And like the Republicans, the Democrats would go through the self righteous process of impeachment knowing ahead of time that there will be no conviction. At least 16 Republican Senators would be needed to convict and probably more since Lieberman would probably vote not to convict. These same senators are regularly trashed here, but when we need their votes to convict suddenly they are supposed to be these standup and patriotic people? Well, welcome to Oz. I'll stick with the professionals like Pelosi rather than the political armchair quarterbacks here.

[crazyblueracer]

11. It's about time...

It's about time someone looks into this. $48 for a hammer?!? Please!!

I'm glad someone is going to look into this. I'm tired of people taking adavantage of the government.

[bobthedrummer]

15. kicking and adding some Octafish threads about these criminals

Know Your BFEE: War Profiteers (from 4-17-2005)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3493251

Know Your BFEE: Merchants of Death (from 5-28-2005)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3743890

Now since we, the people, know a little bit about these things-surely the new Congressional leadership knows what to do...