Word: pryor
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...explosion rocked his bedroom, and black Comedian Richard Pryor was engulfed in flames. Hearing his screams, his maid summoned his aunt Jenny, who rushed to his room and smothered the blaze with bedclothes. In shock, Pryor bolted from the house in the Los Angeles suburb of Northridge and rushed into the street. When police arrived with an ambulance, he was still running. "I can't stop!" he shouted. "I'll die if I stop!" His polyester shirt had melted onto his arms and chest, and he suffered third-degree burns from the waist up. At week...
That overheard conversation so appalled Pryor that he began studying the use of outside consultants by the Government. Today he is the foremost congressional expert, and critic, on the subject. As chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Civil Service and General Services, Pryor joined Democratic Congressman Herbert Harris II of Virginia, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Human Resources, to dig up some facts. During the past two weeks they have held joint hearings on the abuses and weaknesses of federal consultant programs. At the same time, the General Accounting Office released a devastating study on the subject. Says Harris...
...There are more than 1,000 firms in the advising business in the Washington area alone, and for years they have been known as the Beltway Bandits, since so many are clustered along the highway that circles the city. Trying to get a grip on their multifarious activities, says Pryor, "is like wrestling with an 800-lb. marshmallow...
...Pryor and other critics charge that agencies often sign contracts for useless and overpriced studies, play favorites by hiring former Government staffers as consultants, and employ outsiders as full-time employees in order to get around hiring freezes. Most important, Pryor claims that agencies increasingly are allowing consultants to make important policy decisions. Says he: "It's a really scary situation. They [the consultants] are elected by no one and are accountable to no one." Among the examples of questionable practices and mismanagement detailed in the GAO report: - The Department of Health, Education and Welfare ordered a survey...
...establishing such controls made sense to the committee. The hearings and the GAO report showed all too clearly that the Government's jerry-built system of hiring consultants badly needs reform. Now that it is budget-cutting season in Washington, Pryor believes the moment is ideal to deflate that 800-lb. marshmallow. Says he: "We could take back maybe $1 billion or $2 billion and not cut out any services at all." In fact, the hearings revealed that the Office of Management and Budget has already decided that all agencies will be required to slash funding for consultant contracts...