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Show War on Waste Vital to USA's Detense The $1.6 trillion defense expenditure proposed by the Reagan Administration over the next five years will not buy true military readiness unless waste and mismanagement is tightly reined in at the Department of Defense. This is exactly what Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger proposes to do: "We intend to see that every dollar Congress votes provides real muscle for our nation's security," he pledges. Billions can be saved, asserts senior editor Eugene H. Methvin In the January Reader's Digest, but it will be an uphill fight against bureaucracv. congress eppears willing to help. It is close to enacting a bill to set up an independent inspector general, who will coordinate DOD's 14,000 auditors and in-vestiautors, track action on their recom- i mendations and issue periodic reports to Congress. Thanks to a law enacted last year, the bureaucracy will be held acountable for waste. "Henceforth, whenever a major weapons system's cost outruns estimates by more than 15 percent, the Pentagon must halt spending and provide Capitol Hill .with the names of the program managers responsible, reasons for the overrun and a plan for correcting it," Methvin writes. ' The Congress has also recently allowed multi-year contracting at the Pentagon, a move experts believe could save as much as 30 percent on big weapons buys. General Alton Slay, who for three years administered all Air Force weapons contracts comments, "Through the savings we could make on multi-year contracting alone, President Reagan wants to oo." When Slay took over When Slay took over Air Force weapons buying, he gave orders' to increase competitive bidding on contracts, which generally reduces costs by 10 to 30 percent. The 54 percent increase incompetitive contracting Slay instigated saved DOD billions. Congress has not yet moved to target raises in . miltary pay according to the needs of the services and duites performed. "We can do better with $500 million in increases we can target, than with ' $5 billion across the board," a General Accounting Office specialist declared. "We now haye a national consensus for a stronger defense effort," says Secretary of the Army John O. Marsh, Jr. , "However, that consensus is fragile and will , not last unless we can enlist everybody in the vw on waste." |