Tracking the Spoils of the Private Sector (murky world of government contractors)

[maddezmom]

Published: April 27, 2008
There are so many barn doors to be closed on the Bush administration’s wasteful, murky world of government contractors that Congress barely knows where to begin. The House has made a start in plugging the multibillion-dollar loophole that the White House let slip into its promised crackdown on fraudulent contractors.

An executive mandate that contracted companies report misuse of taxpayers’ dollars to the Justice Department somehow managed to exempt work performed overseas. A drafting error, says the White House. But one, of course, that would further insulate the administration’s favored war contractors from ever answering for waste and fraud. There have been dozens of offenses, including kickbacks and bribes in Iraq and Afghanistan, where more than $102 billion has been spent on contracts. The Senate must approve the loophole closer.

The House voted as well to address another long-running boondoggle: the brazen failure of contractors to pay federal taxes, even as they are enriched by taxpayers in winning government business. More than 60,000 federal contractors owe $7.7 billion in back taxes, according to the Government Accountability Office. Almost half of the deadbeats are defense contractors who owe the Treasury $3 billion. Anyone shocked? The House bill would prevent seriously delinquent contractors from getting fresh federal deals at home or abroad, as they now routinely do.

These abuses only hint at the contractors’ lucrative universe, which has never been properly mapped. A third measure approved by the House would create a comprehensive database to try to track and monitor the federal procurement system. Right now, this is a willy-nilly nonsystem in which separate government agencies burned by bum contractors lack an efficient clearinghouse to swap warnings. Habitual scofflaws keep scoring contracts.

MORE:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/opinion/27sun2.html?ref=opinion