Tail to Tooth Commission

In 1999, BENS mounted a Tail-to-Tooth Commission (the term referring to ratio of defense spending for support and maintenance to direct spending on combat forces) to help change the Department of Defense’s business and support processes. Its principles were based on two simple but compelling ideas:

• The areas most in need of reform are well known — and have been for some time.
• The business models that have well served America’s world-class companies can be adopted by the Department of Defense, saving money that can be reinvested in modernization and other priority programs.

Issued in 2001, just as the first George W. Bush administration took office, the BENS Tail-to-Tooth Commission’s Call to Action heavily influenced the Department’s Defense Transformation effort.

The Commission focused on four areas where spending smarter could have a real impact on the Pentagon’s bottom line:

• Acquisition reform;
• Base realignment and closure (BRAC);
• Private-sector partnering;
• Planning, Programming and Budgeting System (PPBS) reform.

The Commission held six work sessions to hear from a wide range of defense policy experts and leaders from government and business. In the course of their deliberations, Commissioners identified eleven priority initiatives. Reviewing these recommendations from the perspective of 2007, 9 of 11 initiatives have been undertaken. Unfortunately, with the exception of the very successful military family housing privatization program, the other programs average a grade of B- overall. More needs to be done, but the Global War on Terror has shifted attention from the defense reform focus of the BENS Tail-to-Tooth Commission’s report.