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Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Lieberman, Collins Warn Against Slashing Acquisition Workforce

The two influential senators say the mistakes the Defense Department and others made in the 1990s during the last serious budget reductions can't be repeated this time around. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) said budget cuts shouldn't be balanced on the backs of the acquisition workforce. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) added reductions in acquisition staff mean the government will pay more for goods and services. The story is part of the special series Inside the World's Biggest Buyer.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Okay, here's the lesson..

GSA was originally created to serve as the Government's "supply room". There job was to consolidate acquisition into a single authority so that volume purchasing could be used to lower costs. GSA charges (Government) customers a small percentage fee that was intended to fund their existence. The problem became that nearly every Agency in Government now does their own purchasing by awarding their own individual purchasing contracts and, in some cases, encourages other Agencies to use their contracts (for a fee). Basically, they compete with GSA.

To suggest that slashing the acquisition workforce could be damaging is absolutely silly. What it will do is cut out some of the redundancy that exists today. Obviously, Susan Collins doesn't understand this.