Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. TONKO. Madam Chair, the highest individual government salary funded by the American taxpayer is that of the President of the United States at a total of $400,000, or so I thought. The President is certainly the highest paid public servant, but it turns out that the leader of the free world isn't actually the highest paid executive on the taxpayers' payroll.

In fact, the highest Federal Government salaries by far can be earned by private sector executives who are paid up to $700,000 per year directly in taxpayer dollars. I do not mean executives who earn their multibillion-dollar incomes by selling often overpriced and underperforming equipment to our men and women in uniform, though the customer is the Federal Government. Those salaries are paid through transactions in the private sector. No, I am talking about the Federal Government salaries paid directly by the Pentagon and other agencies to private contractor executives, direct salaries paid for 100 percent by taxpayer dollars.

You won't find these exorbitant pay rates on government income lists. They certainty aren't subject to the current Federal employee pay and hiring freeze.

In fact, that $700,000 maximum salary increases every year to reach even greater heights even as we contemplate cutting other areas of our budget to new lows, including that of our military service branches.

These salaries are being paid by a department that has not been able to pass a standard audit in its entire history. It cannot even tell us how many contractors are on its payroll.

Madam Chair, the salary of a typical Army private starts at a meager $20,000 per year. General Petraeus, a four-star general with 37 years of active service, the commander of the international coalition in Afghanistan and the next director of the CIA, earns a salary of approximately $180,000. The Secretary of Defense earns about $200,000. How then can we justify salaries of up to $700,000 for defense contractor executives?

I understand that there may be contractors who supply services to our Nation that our government cannot perform on its own. However, I am also absolutely certain that there is no one single private contractor whose value to our national security is twice that of the Commander in Chief of the United States military.

At a time when the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is telling us that the Nation's debt is the number one threat facing America, we cannot continue using taxpayer dollars to pay lavish and unjustifiable private contractor salaries that are more than triple the pay of our military leadership.

My amendment simply states that funds in this bill will not be used to pay a Federal Government salary for any individual defense contractor that exceeds the salary of the Secretary of Defense. That salary is level 1 of the executive schedule, or about $200,000.

This is a very modest reform. It is not about limiting contracts or contract spending more broadly. It does not deal with outsourcing or insourcing. It does not, in fact, cap contractor pay, which may include private sector projects, profit sharing, or other earnings. It merely deals with the salary paid to contractors directly by the taxpayer, limiting the cost of that compensation in an effort to reduce the deficit and stop paying exorbitant Federal salaries to private sector employees.

I think this amendment forms a perfect complement to section 8050 of the underlying bill, which deals with limiting contractor bonuses. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this amendment and other modest simple reforms that can help us tackle the deficit.

With that, I thank you, Madam Chair.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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