[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 144 (Thursday, October 23, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2068]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          INTRODUCTION OF THE COMMON SENSE CONTRACTING-OUT ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 23, 1997

  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, on March 30, 1994, President Clinton 
signed into law the Federal Workforce Restructuring Act [FWRA] (P.L. 
103-226) to reduce the Federal employee ceiling between 1993 and 1999 
by 272,900 positions to a level of 1.88 million workers.
  In his January 23, 1996, State of the Union Address President Clinton 
proclaimed: The era of big government is over. . . . Our Federal 
Government today is the smallest it has been in 30 years and it's 
getting smaller every day.
  The FWRA goal has been reached 2 years early. In fact, the 
administration predicts that by the end of this fiscal year that we 
will have achieved 110 percent of the original downsizing target.
  The question we must now ask ourselves as lawmakers is did we 
accomplish what we set out to achieve. By getting rid of Federal 
employees have we made our Government work better and cost less or have 
we simply replaced civil servants with contractors? Most observers 
believe that Government downsizing is driving the increase in 
contracting-out for services.
  According to a recent policy analysis from the Cato Institute, at the 
same time the Government was downsizing there has been a ``rapid growth 
rate of contracted labor, which has become a kind of shadow 
government.'' By 1995 the Government was spending $114 billion a year 
on service contracts while the total cost of the Federal payroll was 
only $111 billion.
  Former OMB Deputy Director for Management John Koskinen acknowledged 
last year that the Government does not know how many private workers it 
is paying for. ``You can use any number you want,'' he said, ``but 
whatever it is it is a lot of people.'' Current OMB Deputy Director for 
Management Ed Deseve said recently before the House Civil Service 
Subcommittee that not only do we not know how many contractors work for 
Uncle Sam ``we don't really have any need for this type of 
information.'' I disagree.
  If you consider the fact that taxpayers are paying the salaries of 
both Federal employees and contractors, the truth is that we really 
don't know if the Government today is the smallest it has been in 30 
years. More importantly, we really don't know over the long term if 
contractor performance is more cost effective than in-house performance 
of Government functions.
  When the public sector and the private sector compete to provide 
Government services, both sides strive to provide the best service for 
the best price. In these competitions, the public sector wins half the 
time and the private sector wins half the time. The real winners, 
however, are the taxpayers who generally benefit from the competition 
driven 30 percent reduction in the cost of Government services.
  Under current Government contracting rules (OMB Circular A-76) when 
the Government wins a contracting competition its workers are 
periodically audited to determine if they remain the most cost-
effective providers of service. Ironically, no similar rule is applied 
to contractors that win competitions. My legislation closes the gap in 
current contracting rules and keeps the competitive spirit alive by 
providing a mechanism for automatically reviewing contracts that have 
exceeded their initial projected costs to determine if the work could 
be performed more efficiently in-house.
  If you are interested in ensuring that the American taxpayers are 
getting the best bang for the buck, I encourage my colleagues to 
cosponsor this legislation.

                          ____________________