CONGRESS IS ON THE BRINK of a major giveaway to defense contractors, tucking language into a must-pass piece of legislation that would broadly expand their ability to gouge the federal government on sole-source contracts.

The National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, is practically the only bill Congress passes on time every year. The last 50 NDAA’s, which authorize funds and set policy for the Department of Defense, have reached the president’s desk without a holdup. Education, healthcare, and jobs can wait, but supporting the troops — actually, supporting the defense contractors who make the weapons — must never face a delay. The bill even goes through a regular process, with dozens of amendments and bipartisan votes. It’s like nothing else in Washington.

This year’s version of the NDAA, which authorizes $696 billion in military spending, includes a nice gift for contractors, particularly those that have monopolized a particular part the Pentagon needs. Buried in the NDAA, which is scheduled to pass the House Friday, is an increase in the amount of products which can be sold to the military without providing cost information — data about the price of manufacturing and labor. Without this information, monopoly contractors could enjoy a huge markup on their sales to the government without anyone knowing about it.

https://theintercept.com/2017/07/14/congress-trying-to-sneak-through-major-giveaway-to-defense-contractors/

Secrets, secrets are no fun; that is, of course, unless you are one of the 26 members of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC). Earlier this week, the Senate began debating the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the colossal $602 billion defense authorization bill shaping issues as divisive as the closing of Guantanamo, the Iran nuclear deal, and US-Cuba relations. Once again, SASC has usurped the democratic process by holding the markup of the bill behind closed doors.

At a time when Congress’s approval ratings remain below 20 percent and Americans feel their government accomplishes nothing, it is confounding that SASC would withhold discussion of a bill that authorizes more than half of the federal government’s discretionary spending. Open markups provide, not only the ability to ensure proper accountability, but also the opportunity to demonstrate the consideration and deliberation required when drafting such a massive bill.

SASC subcommittee chairs are able to hold their individual markups in open or closed sessions; however, discussion of the bill markups occurs in closed executive sessions. SASC members, when justifying the need for the closed sessions, argue that the burden of shifting between open and classified sessions is too cumbersome. In addition to the evident disregard this argument demonstrates towards taxpayers, the argument about inconvenience seems exaggerated in light of the fact that the Committee has successfully held partially open sessions in the past.

http://www.pogo.org/blog/2016/06/ndaa-markups-continue-under-a-veil-of-secrecy.html