Each month, Iowa Senator Joni Ernst selects an area of government spending she considers wasteful and highlights the people or agency behind it by presenting them with the “Squeal Award.” July’s award was given to federal contractors, who Ernst says are being awarded large bonus checks despite the fact their projects have run billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule. She notes no particular department appears to be to blame, as it seen in all areas of federal government. Ernst used the Department of Defense (DoD) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to highlight her point. According to the DoD Inspector General, the Pentagon has paid up to $10.6 million in bonuses to a contractor who failed to provide the necessary parts purchased for fighter jets, which has caused life and safety concerns for our nation’s aviators. In NASA’s case, the “Lift Off” program, whose goal is to take humans back to the moon, is $1.8 billion over budget and years behind schedule due to poor performance by contractors. Despite these issues, NASA’s Inspector General identified more than $500 billion in bonuses awarded to contractors that have failed to live up to government and agency standards. In an effort to cut back on frivolous bonus payouts, Ernst has introduced the Bogus Bonus Ban Act that prohibits bonuses to contractors with unsatisfactory performance, outcomes and budget and scheduling failures. “We should never stop reaching for the stars, but we will never get off the ground by losing billions of taxpayer dollars in budgetary black holes,” says Ernst. “It makes no sense to reward failure to launch. It’s not rocket science.”
