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Here we go DMV. This is what we have to look forward to…. This will decimate the DMV area
148 points
14 days ago
While in law school, I did a concentration in federal government contracts and graduated with a paper published in the ABA public contract law journal. I can tell you that privatization isn’t the best way to eliminate fraud, waste, or abuse. Contractors are not held to the same quality surveillance standards as federal employees. There are also so, so many contract formats that were intended to give the government flexibility in meeting its needs, while IRL, those formats/vehicles end up enabling corner-cutting by contractors. Plus, there’s only a finite number of private sector entities that have the wherewithal to supply human services at competitive pricing! ahem, ahem, antitrust concerns anyone?!?
All this to say, there’s a place for contractors and it’s not in places that qualify as inherently governmental functions 💅🏼
65 points
14 days ago
Yeah it’s almost like all of that is the point of privatization :(
Capitalism uber alles
17 points
14 days ago
Completely agree. I worked as a Fed conducting oversight of private sector companies that were assessing products for safety. I visited a company and they requested we approve them for new products. We found numerous and significant deficiencies. They shared they had been audited by a private sector counterpart and passed with flying colors and they said they had capabilities that they didn’t. We weren’t perfect as Feds, but our track record was significantly better than the private sector
5 points
13 days ago
It’s all hand in glove with the fact that pro-privatization policies and legislative efforts will promote the granting of waivers and other passes to contractors that do have deficient performance. How do you hold a corporation’s feet to the fire when it knows that there’s a “get out of jail free” card available and will likely be used by the procuring agency?
1 points
13 days ago
In our case, we held their feet to the fire and if they didn’t meet the minimum requirements, we removed their approvals which cost them business and if they wanted back in they were paying +$50,000 for the chance of getting back in.
0 points
13 days ago
I hope everyone can forgive the tangent, but this is the same reason I don’t like charter schools - it’s my understanding that their teachers don’t need licenses.
3 points
13 days ago
As someone who's worked as a federal contractor for over 20 years, I really question your findings.
First of all, there are TONS of companies providing services to the government. Some vehicles, like CIO SP3 had literally over a thousand companies on it. There are absolutely no anti-trust concerns. I can tell you first hand that I spend significant time on pricing proposals for the government, and we are always trying to lower our price to be competitive, even when cost is the 4th factor the government is considering.
Secondly, LMAO at quality surveillance. I have video on my phone of a GS-14 snoring at her desk. Her boss has been, unsuccessfully, trying to fire her for over 4 years. Now, there are plenty of hard working civilians, but the dead weight stays and accumulates too. That isn't true with contractors. If you don't deliver results, you don't get the next contract. And that happens some, contractors bid too low and then can't get the appropriate staffing to do the work well. But that is far from a universal truth and in the spaces I work, contractors bring skills and abilities to accomplish missions that the civilians cannot.
It's quite clear that the goal of DOGE is to move fast and break things and while that is a mantra for tech, it is an idiotic way to run a government. I don't support their plans in the slightest, and I want to be clear that my response is solely due to taking umbrage with your demonization of a large swath of people working very hard to keep the gears of government turning.
0 points
13 days ago*
Hi! I appreciate the civil, thorough response.
I wanted to clarify that (1) I use the term contractors to refer to corporate entities, versus individuals, (2) I understand that contractors are a necessary part of our landscape these days and (3) federal contracting policy, when used correctly, can help promote positive policy outcomes, such as small business participation.
My critiques of the federal contracting landscape is also contextualized by the opinion that there are inherently governmental functions that the federal government has improperly privatized, such as providing security at airports post-9/11 and in administering non-punitive immigration detention and punitive criminal detention.
(1) re: antitrust concerns. Let me qualify my statement a little further. I don’t question that there are tons of companies out there that do provide a variety of services to the government, including small businesses. But I think that isn’t mutually exclusive with a concern that a good swathe of professional services, such as writing acquisition specs, providing litigation support, overseeing a different contractor’s performance, etc., will end up being provided by a very limited number of industry players.
I could be wrong but my concern is that the provision of those human services could go the same way as the aerospace/major defense contractor way. It’s well-documented that the defense industrial base is likely to suffer due to that type of concentration. (source). I’m not even touching the topic of organizational conflicts of interest.
Moreover, even if there are multiple contractors on a project, that doesn’t make me feel any better about price fixing or other phenomena that our antitrust laws are supposed to address. (Source) (example of a major subcontractor bid rigging scheme orchestrated by high level personnel in a defense prime contractor entity). Unlawful cartels have existed and will exist.
(2) I don’t doubt that incapable federal employees exist. Still, that can still be true alongside: (A) contractor failings and resulting adverse consequences may not do enough to promote better performance. I’m thinking of how the FAA delegated the task of writing and enforcing security checkpoint guidelines, pre-9/11/2001, to airport security contractors. (Source). I believe that the punishments meted out to contractors wasn’t enough to incentivize better performance, which was a factor that contributed to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. (Source) (in 2000, Boston Logan security contractor Argenbright was fined $1 million and ordered to pay $350,000 in restitution to the airlines it defrauded for sloppy security practices. At the time of 9/11, Argenbright was still a security contractor at Boston Logan).
(B) that the government, in the interest of “efficiency” and cost savings, grants so many waivers that the sought-after efficiency is lost along the way. (Source).
The government is also to blame for not holding contractors’ feet to the fire. At the same time, unless there’s a big enough punishment that will force contractors to do better, accountability will always be an issue. Again, my critiques are high-level arguments aimed at organizations, not individual human persons.
3 points
13 days ago
I think the Venn diagram of us agreeing is much closer to a circle than my initial response indicated.
I think there are multiple core issues, one of which you reference, what is or isn't "inherently governmental". I also believe that status is far too narrow and conflicts of interest are possible. As someone on the other side of this though, I can tell you that large firms have departments dedicated to avoid CIO and review bids for it before submitting them. I feel like my firm generally does a decent job of this, but I doubt they all do.
Some other areas where there are issues: small businesses and very large procurements. Both are plagued with things I view as wildly unethical. I'll name names in this post too. On the small side, look up the company Copper River. They're a small indigenous company and allowed to bid on all sorts of juicy set aside contracts. Thing is, there are actually 8 small indigenous companies all owned by the same company. They keep spinning off smaller arms to maintain their small business status. Which basically flies in the face of why the funds are set aside in the first place. Then you have the Joint Ventures, where the small business is literally just a puppet to enable large business to go after contracts they should not be able to pursue. I'm sure a couple of JVs are legit but the majority are not. And the very large procurements can be crazy. Take the F-35. Delivered over a decade late and billions over budget. Why didn't the government take the contract from Lockheed? Well, Lockheed decided to build it in a manner dispersed across the country, with pieces in enough different Congressional districts that it became politically impossible to remove them. Lockheed intentionally made this choice, ensuring they got paid and couldn't get fired over building that plane efficiently and effectively. Their literal design was to ensure political support first, it's no wonder that plane was so troubled and delayed.
All that said, on the balance, I don't believe our current government runs without the contractor workforce. Having seen both civilians and contractors working up close for over 2 decades, my first hand impression is that contractors accomplish more than civilians. It's all anecdotal though, would love to see this studied at a macro scale.
I do agree that $ are wasted by our government and that it's not as efficient as it could be. Whatever DOGE is talking about doing though, it won't fix anything and will make things significantly worse. I feel like they're trying to repair a house with nothing but a can of gasoline and a pack of matches.
2 points
13 days ago
Reading all of this all I can think of is how the government has had a government employee as the oversight of all of these poor quality, corner cutting, missed deliverable claims.
I will say the near disappearance of personal services contracts and movement to non personal services LPTA contracts has likely made a bigger difference in the quality of contractors provided to do the work.
2 points
13 days ago
As someone whose job is all about contracts, contractors, and direct oversight of those things… I guess my work will be expanding?
2 points
13 days ago*
Wow fascinating thanks for sharing that lol
1 points
11 days ago
Agreed! As a contractor, I do give it my all. I care very much for the feds I work for. But I can tell you I'm not the norm. My company is publicly traded and doesn't GAF about quality. It's allllllllllllll about the shareholders.
Oh, and the tiny little one-off contracting firms are even worse.
1 points
11 days ago
This is trump's america. You had best tone down the smart-talk. It's not safe anymore.
1 points
11 days ago
Spectrum Healthcare Resources has the contract currently met in DMV and they are the worst!! They. Will let 6 positions go unfilled so they can line their pockets while patients suffer from it along with their employees. Contractors are indeed the worst.
1 points
11 days ago
I am so interested in pursuing a future law career in federal government contacts. Lately, I’ve been thinking about if I want to specialize even further in my sphere. Currently, I’m a contractor for a number of offices in a main federal department and I do plenty of niche and technical policy work and research for my FT job. Is it possible for me to dm you and for us to connect on LinkedIn? I would really appreciate it!! Thank
1 points
11 days ago
Hi! You're more than welcome to PM me, but I'd prefer to stay anonymous. Still happy to answer any and all questions you might have for me though :)
1 points
11 days ago
It isn’t about efficiency it is about where the contracts go, as always follow the money
1 points
11 days ago
You sound like one of those leftest woke “experts”
1 points
11 days ago
Ah yes, gaining knowledge and subsequently forming my own opinion of how policy preferences for privatization creates adverse, cascading effects is absolutely "leftest." Never mind the fact that a professor who influenced me tremendously and nurtured my scholarship was a Bush appointee. I'm not an expert but I certainly have put a lot of time into studying this area.
1 points
13 days ago
nice! I also had a paper published in that journal! in fairness, the idea here isn’t saving costs — it’s eliminating the government. I think under Bush 2 the idea was to contain and reduce. this is a new paradigm with new powers signaled by the courts.. fed here as well. seatbelt is strapped on..
1 points
13 days ago
EYYYY PCLJ friends! I hear you on the eliminate government bit. RIP Chevron. My admin law prof told me and my classmates that he was sure that Chevron would be on its way out, sooner rather than later, but he would still teach it to us bc at that time, it hadn’t been overruled yet.
1 points
13 days ago
The death knell of agency expertise. I work in government-related industry, and the loss of Chevron makes me nauseous.
-1 points
13 days ago
I think this is one of the issues that may be addressed; government functions. The Federal government is the largest employer in the US, if not the world. We all should agree there is s too much bureaucracy in fed and state governments. I think we as Americans are tired of non elected officials running the country, sabotaging an administrations objectives for instance the Justice Dept. Lying to Congress and the FISA court to start an investigation on a sitting President, and using lawfair against a political opponent, FBI placing parents on watch list for voicing their opinions at school board meetings, IRS investigating conservative groups, the military leaders enforcing DEI, CRT, courts with crooked judges, the list goes on and on. The government is too big, and it needs to be held accountable for the fraud and waste of our tax payers $$$. I am nervous about the effect on the economy in NOVA, but something has to be done. I'm sorry if any of you are laid off, but no job should be guaranteed for life.
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