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Fact Sheet

Fact Sheet: How Congress Can Improve Oversight of Weapons Programs Acquisition

Congress can improve its oversight of defense spending. We recommend four measures Congress could take now.

Collage of three F-35s and a clipping from the Truth in Negotiations Act.

(Illustration: Ren Velez / POGO; Photos: Getty Images)

The Problem

The Constitution reserves for Congress the responsibility to raise and support our armed forces, including authorizing and appropriating funds and overseeing their expenditure.1 Unfortunately, Congress has created and allowed serious gaps in its oversight of defense spending. 

We buy weapons that don’t work.
The F-35 is a prime example. As POGO has reported, the Pentagon has continued to take delivery of the jets despite operational test reports indicating numerous failures to meet requirements.2 As a result, at least 40% of our $1 trillion fleet of F-35s will require modification at taxpayer expense.3 In the meantime, we continue to buy more.

Weapons programs keep exceeding their original cost estimates.
When costs on a weapons program balloon past a certain point (called a “critical breach”), the Nunn-McCurdy Act requires the secretary of defense to cancel the program or justify why it should continue.4 It’s clear this requirement isn’t deterring out of control spending: According to a 2016 Congressional Research Service report, 24 critical breaches were reported between 2007 and 2015, only one of which resulted in cancellation of a program.5

Loopholes in regulations allow contractors to charge unreasonable prices.
While the Defense Department is required to rely on competition for lower prices, it often resorts to “sole-source” contracts, where contractors themselves provide cost data.6 Contractors are often unwilling to share that data, preventing procurement officials from striking a fair deal.7

The Pentagon can’t account for the value of what it has bought.
In November 2024, the Pentagon announced it had failed its seventh consecutive financial audit. The year before, when asked to account for their share of nearly $4 trillion in assets, 18 of 29 Pentagon components were unable to.8

The Solutions

Don’t buy weapons before they’re tested.
The law requires that major weapons programs can’t proceed to full-rate production until the Pentagon issues a report stating whether they are “effective and suitable for combat.”9 Congress should reject programs that cannot be tested within a reasonable amount of time.10

Increase Congress’s power to cancel programs by amending the Nunn-McCurdy Act.
Congress should take greater responsibility for Pentagon cost overruns by amending the Nunn-McCurdy Act so that it requires congressional approval to continue programs that have experienced multiple critical breaches.

Restore the Truth in Negotiations Act cost threshold to the pre-2018 value of $750,000.
In 2018, Congress significantly weakened the Truth in Negotiations Act, in part by raising the threshold value for contracts to which it applies from $750,000 to $2 million.11 In addition to restoring the earlier threshold, Congress should amend the act in the following ways:

  • Require contractors to provide certified cost data for non-competitive procurements by default, with few exceptions.
  • Require agencies to create and maintain a public database of cases in which contractors fail to provide cost, pricing, or technical data as required.
  • Institute penalties for non-compliance, such as debarment from future contracts, and enforce refunds.12

Require the Pentagon to pass its annual audit.
Enact legislation requiring a successful Defense Department audit and imposing penalties if the DOD fails the audit. A successful audit increases transparency and year-over-year comparability for our nearly $1 trillion annual defense budget.13

Contact

Greg Williams, Director, Center for Defense Information, Project On Government Oversight, [email protected]

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