Posted on 05/13/2007 9:03:22 AM PDT by BGHater
The value of federal contracts awarded without competitive bidding has soared since President Bush took office in 2000, according to a new study to be released Monday by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.
Federal contracting grew from $203 billion in fiscal 2000 to $377 billion by fiscal 2005. During the same period, the value of federal contracts awarded without competitive bidding more than doubled, from $67 billion to $145 billion, the study found. At the same time, government oversight of contracting has weakened, according to the study's author, Scott Lilly, a senior fellow at the center and a former House Democratic aide.
For example, the Defense Department is responsible for 80 percent of the overall federal contract growth during the five years under study. But the number of federal civilians employed by the department declined by about 2,000 in the same period. As a result, contractors have increasingly stepped in to fill the void -- to help the government decide its needs, draft contracts awarded to other private firms and then monitor their performance, the study found.
Federal contracts are big money -- they represent about 3 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, about the same amount as the automotive industry. And because a growing chunk of that money is being handed to private companies without competitive bidding, it raises questions about whether taxpayers are getting the best deal and whether the contracting process has grown corrupt, Lilly said.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
You know how long the competive process takes on awarding major contracts? About a year or more. In times of war you do not have that much time, so you use contract vehicles already in place which can be done in a matter of weeks or even less.
Ahh, well, the MSM could focus on such things as the deficit coming down faster then expected.....but no, they'll find anything negative (even out of context) instead.
This “liberal think tank” is just angry that the money is going to private firms rather than unionized government drones.
Terribly deceiving story when looking at the war in Iraq since there are many firms that simply would not bid on contracts due to the risk.
Everybody in the media hollers about Halliburton's non- competitive contracts. It was done that way because nobody else would bid. Believe me, any contractor that had officially protested Halliburton's Iraq contract awards and had cause would've been made a celebrity and their executives would've been on the alphabet network news every night until doomsday.
If you've never seen this in action, trust me - you don't want to know how it really works unless you like being ripped off.
Isn’t it amazing how all kinds of companies in and around Little Rock, who never had a govt. contract in their life, were suddenly being awarded high-dollar contracts when Krinton took power? Hmmm, I wonder how they would’ve performed on an audit. Any guesses on how much work was accomplished and what was actually delivered?
What really sucks is that so few govt. contracts have any kind of performance clauses written in. Contractors know that they can low-ball the bid just to get the award, make it up on contract change-orders, do a half-assed job, and still walk away with all of the money. If they’re actually fired, which is almost impossible, they’ll still walk away with 3/4 of the money. And they’ll have to be considered on the next contract because the govt. only punishes blatant fraud, not incompetence and “accidental oversights”. Just play dumb and you’re always in the game.
I have a friend who works in government acquisitions. He lays partial blame on the fact that intellectual property law was overhauled in the 1990s to greatly favor private contractors vis-a-vis the government. Contractors typically will NOT sell the rights to their data or proprietary information to the government, thereby locking the government into a series of expensive noncompetitive follow-on contracts.
Funny, I couldn’t find Feinstein’s name in the article. Wonder why.
How many companies are big enough to handle the size and scope of some of these needs?
Too, how many companies are capable of doing the needed jobs?
But why is the truth needed when they’re trying to drum up an emotional response?
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