Curbing Waste, Fraud and Abuse

Writing in the August 6 Wall Street Journal, Senator Hillary Clinton begins by mentioning a building in the Cayman Islands that serves as the official headquarters for 18,000 corporations, "half of which have U.S. ties." They set up fictional shop there to avoid U.S. taxes. One of these is Halliburton subsidiary KBR, which "has used offshore tax havens to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal taxes. To no one's surprise, instead of cracking down on KBR, the Bush administration has rewarded the company in April of this year with a 10-year, $150 billion contract in Iraq."

The crony system of favored companies getting no-bid contracts, receiving bonuses whether or not work is done and skipping out on their taxes became the normal order of business under the Tom DeLay Congress and the Bush White House. Clinton and other Democrats have proposed a new Truman Commission to root out such abuses. It has been blocked so far by the President and his Republican allies who would rather not see embarrassing facts come out in an election year. But if Obama wins, expect a good deal of real economizing to take place.

Clinton's proposals include five principal points. The first would "ban the federal government from contracting with companies that hide profits offshore." The second would require vetting companies' records and making sure they "complete the work they are hired to do." Imagine that. The third would end the awarding of "bonuses" for work not yet performed, as has been common in Iraq. The fourth would restore competitive bidding and transparency to the contracting system. Finally, the fifth would reverse the "ideological privatization of critical government functions."

The corruption allowed to flourish under the Bush presidency is at a level unseen since the disgraces of the Harding administration back in the early 1920s. It is just one of many reasons the nation badly needs a change. These reforms, which amount to little more than simple honesty and basic accountability, would save the American people about $200 billion a year without reducing the level of services one iota. It is reassuring to see that even having lost her presidential bid, Sen. Clinton and othr like-minded leaders are on the job with a view to rolling back the rot that has infected the system these past eight years.