Senator McCaskill is starting to organize her subcommittee’s investigation of whether earmarks are used to circumvent government defense contract bidding requirements.

She has asked pointed questions in the past about no-bid contracts for military work.
Now she is heading a special Senate subcommittee looking at how the government issues contracts. She says there has not been enough competitive bidding.
McCaskill has asked the Defense Department to explain links between budget earmarks and competitiveness in contracting. She says earmarks put into the Defense Authorization Bill require competitive bidding from private companies. But she wants to know if that’s what’s really going on.
McCaskill says the committee has asked for earmark-financed private military contracts issued last year and this year "so we can begin to look at whether or not those contracts were up for bid from competitors or were directed for one individual company." McCaskill also wants her subcommittee to look into the use of private contractors in Afghanistan. She says she does not want the American military to make the same mistakes in Afghanistan that it made in Iraq.

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