{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://web.archive.org/web/20141010033510/http://coffman.house.gov//media-center/in-the-news/dods-increasing-reliance-on-brass-is-a-sign-of-broader-problems", "DOD's Increasing Reliance on Brass is a Sign of Broader Problems", "2014-10-06", "2014", "2014-10", "Republican", "House", "CO", "Mike Coffman", "C001077", "web.archive.org", null, null, "legacy", "The Pentagon is more top-heavy than ever before. How much does this bureaucratic bloat cost taxpayers? The Pentagon has no idea, and neither does the Government Accountability Office. Pentagon officials know they need more generals and admirals, they just can\u2019t tell you why. Those are the conclusions from a GAO report released earlier this month.\nIn 2011, I testified\u00a0before the Senate Armed Services Committee and explained the problem, which I dubbed Star Creep\u2014the Pentagon\u2019s propensity to have generals and admirals (also known as Generals and Flag Officers, or GFO) fill positions once performed by lower-ranking officers. This has resulted in an unprecedentedly high ratio of generals and admirals to the troops they command.\nThird Way has repeatedly shown\u00a0how this hinders military effectiveness and wastes money. The GAO study corroborated many of our findings, including:\n The number of generals and admirals increased by 8 percent from 2001 to 2013, while the enlisted ranks shrank by 2 percent;\n\t\u201cThe ratios of enlisted to non-GFO officers and enlisted to GFOs are both at their lowest levels since prior to 2001 (5:1 and 1,200:1, respectively).\u201d\n Unfortunately, the study could not answer the burning question that we at Third Way and many members of Congress have: How much has this increasing top-heaviness at the Department of Defense cost American taxpayers? Reps. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), and Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) have all introduced legislation\u00a0to combat Star Creep, but we still don\u2019t have a full cost estimate\n\u201cThe full cost to DOD for active duty GFOs from fiscal years 2001 through 2013 is unknown because complete cost data were not available,\u201d GAO said in the report.\nThis is perhaps unsurprising given that the DOD is the only federal government agency that has yet to pass a full financial audit, ever. This is a major problem for an agency that is struggling to find savings at a time of declining defense budgets. How much extra money and resources could we provide to troops on the front lines\u2014like those conducting airstrikes in Iraq and Syria\u2014if we could right-size the back office? The DOD has no idea.\nNot only is the Pentagon incapable of calculating the cost of its generals and admirals, it also can\u2019t honestly say how many of these top commanders it should employ.\nAccording to the GAO report, \u201cDOD officials stated that there continues to be a need for more GFOs than are authorized by Congress, but added that the department has not comprehensively updated GFO requirements since 2003.\u201d In other words, DOD officials want more generals and admirals, they just don\u2019t know why because it\u2019s been more than a decade since they determined how many generals and admirals they actually need.\nGAO provided a very obvious solution to the DOD\u2019s problem: figure out how many generals and admirals are actually necessary before asking for more. The reasons for conducting such an analysis might seem obvious to anyone that\u2019s ever been in a workplace that has to justify hiring and firing folks, but to make it perfectly clear to the department, the GAO report explains that it \u201cwould help the department ensure that resources are properly matched to the needs of today\u2019s environment.\u201d This is a no-brainer, as is the GAO\u2019s other recommendation for the DOD to ensure it can actually track the full cost of its top commanders.\nMost importantly, these are ready-made proposals that can, and should, be put into law by the Senate, which can incorporate them in its version of the fiscal year 2015 DOD budget during the lame-duck session. In the current budget climate, Congress and the DOD must make sure we\u2019re not sacrificing the front lines to pay for the back office.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://web.archive.org/web/20141010033510/http://coffman.house.gov//media-center/in-the-news/dods-increasing-reliance-on-brass-is-a-sign-of-broader-problems"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9318720549345016, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}