The report is titled, "Defense Acquisition Reform: Where Do We Go From Here? A Compendium of Views by Leading Experts . It is the product of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The panel's chairman is Michigan Democrat Carl Levin, and its ranking Republican is John McCain of Arizona.
A joint statement from the two senators says the report "may inform congressional deliberations in the future." It's a safe bet that will be the case. And the fact that McCain and Levin put it out suggests that Congress is not done legislating ways to improve acquisition outcomes at the Pentagon, though the subcommittee notes that many of the needed changes do not necessarily require legislation.
The report will almost certainly be a tool for the Senate Armed Services Committee next year, especially if Republicans take the Senate in November and McCain, a longtime critic of Pentagon acquisition excesses, becomes chairman during the last two years of a Democratic presidency.
The experts put forth a number of suggestions that have been heard before but that may need to be more tightly woven in to the way the Pentagon spends its money. These include preventing new requirements from being continually added to a military system over time; designing hardware with cost and budgets as limiting factors; more effectively recruiting and training acquisition personnel; and involving military commanders more closely in buying decisions.
