Can the Pentagon operate like a business?

Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., ran for the Senate on his experience as a businessman and he’s trying to inject some basic business principles into the Department of Defense. As a member of the Senate Budget and Foreign Relations Committees, Perdue introduced three amendments to the fiscal year 2017 National Defense Authorization Act that are pretty straight forward, but may be greeted with hesitency across the Potomac.

The amendments would:

▪  Amendment 4203: Require the Secretary of the Department of Defense to present a plan to Congress within 90 days to perform an audit no later than September 1, 2017.

▪ Amendment 4109: Curtail excessive end-of-the-fiscal-year spending, often attributed to fear of losing future funding, by outlining long-term savings recommendations that provide tactical units with greater budget flexibility on year-end obligations.

▪ Amendment 4110: Hold the Defense Contract Management Agency accountable for creating a plan to implement the Department of Defense's Item Unique Identification policy, which is a more efficient and reliable process to track assets (furniture, equipment, maintenance parts, etc.) through automatic identification technology. This policy has been in place since 2003, and the DCMA has yet to implement it.

In a media release, Perdue said, “We are past the tipping point in our national debt crisis. Providing for our national defense is a core responsibility of the government, and we must seek greater accountability within our defense budget. Applying business measures like audits and equipment tracking policies help safeguard taxpayer dollars and should be implemented across every sector of the federal government, including the Department of Defense. Additionally, when departments save money, they should be applauded for their cost saving efforts — not threatened with budget cuts for subsequent years.”

The Pentagon has many allies. It will be interesting to see if these common sense amendments receive any push back, how much, and from what quarters.

This story was originally published June 8, 2016 at 9:00 PM with the headline "Can the Pentagon operate like a business?."