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Return to Article: Major defense contractors reap billions in no-bid contracts, report finds

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  Makes perfect sense to me if your goal is to destroy the federal government. Pay top dollar to corporations- let them cheat their employees and give huge bonuses to top corporate executives for doing work that can easily be done better by federal employees on payroll for 10 cents on the dollar of what we pay these corporations.

  No wonder the President was not a successful businessman and now he gets to do the same to the federal government-- pay top dollar for poor contractor work and starve the civil service instead of paying for professional civil servants to do the work with a modicum of esprit de corp.

  I'd love to drive a huge stake into this outsourcing nonsense.

  HR Specialist

  GovExec.com reader Posted October 5, 2004 11:01 AM
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  The govt might pay Halliburtan $80-100k for a truck driver, but I imagine that truck driver is lucky to be making $40-50k. I know we pay our contractors $60-80 dollars an hour for people who are recieving $30-40 dollars an hour, tops. The rest of the money goes up to corporate, pays for the CEO million dollar bonus, and of course gets distributed to the shareholders. The hardworking, dedicated contractor worker bees are the ones that get cheated the most.

  GovExec.com reader Posted October 1, 2004 1:05 PM
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  Been watching on TV in Texas how the Halliburton subsidary is hiring folks for $80k to $100K a year to work in food service and driving trucks in Iraq. This is part of the no-bid awards being used in DoD. Makes me kind of wonder why we can't keep Americans working in America at jobs that are safe for civilians.

  I also heard on the same program that 62 of this company's employees have been killed in Iraq and 2 employees are missing. Tonight, on the news, a new water treatment plant the American Taxpayers built just got blew up, killing scores of children. The media can show dead Iraqi children on TV but not flag draped American coffins.

  I just hope folks put the pieces of the puzzle together before Novemeber 2nd.

  Mark Gibson Posted September 30, 2004 7:53 PM
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  Why is it only defense contracts that attract attention? Other Departments of the federal government issue contracts too! Civilian Executive agencies award Indefinite Delivery contracts and Blanket Order Agreements. Check out how those agencies makes awards. Then publish a comparison between Departments. Stop picking on the military and the civilians who support them!

  Judy Hackney Posted September 30, 2004 3:04 PM
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  Ms. Garman's statement that "Anybody that is a defense contractor is certainly held accountable, and they are audited heavily" cannot be supported by what's actually going on. The number of auditors has been seriously reduced in the past several years, making "audited heavily" a very dubious claim. There are also no remarks regarding the fact that although the Defense Logistics Agency covers the military's need for food, clothing and medicine, these very supplies and services are subject to being contracted out for no established reason. Another surprise is that Halliburton escaped being named as one of THE major beneficiaries of no-bid contracts.

  Bill Kuzma Posted September 30, 2004 9:27 AM
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  A whole lot of defense contracting is the relationship between the contractors and the DoD. The top five are the top five because they have weapons contracts. However, the top five have found it easy to enter other areas because they have existing contracts and military contacts in high places (of course nothing is in writing but the pressure is there to take care of our friends).

  The biggest problem is the contracting process! It is so time consuming and unresponsive that everyone tries to avoid it. The first question is - who has an existing contract that I can ride on? Find the existing contract and put a delivery order on that contract and you are finished. Most of the problem is a word game so you use the correct words to fall within the scope of work on the contract. For example, what you call interrogation could be called interviewing (all I have to do is find a contract that scopes interviewing and I have it.) By the way, most contracts for services include interviews.

  Solve the problem by eliminating weapons system firms from contracts in other areas! Steamline the contracting process because it is too long and too burdensome for the government employee, as well as the contractor. Pay contrators to bid on RFPs. The cost to put together a bid on a significant government contract would destroy most small companies if they do not get the bid. Therefore, they do not bid at all and hope to become a sub-contractor for the big guys. Break the contracts into smaller segments to encourage small compnies to bid. Never put military personnel in the contracting function to award the contracts or to enforce the contract terms! Hey Captain you want to make major? Create one contracting function for all of DoD and do not allow each service to have its own contracting function!

  There are a lot of problems and sole source contracts is just the tip.

  tax payer Posted September 30, 2004 8:30 AM
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  I am not at all surprised that the government hands out huge amounts of contract dollars with no oversight and at the same time nickels and dimes its professional civil service. The agenda is quite clear. If the mission of this administration is to destroy what I understand the President calls the "beast", aka the federal government, than what better way to do it than waste billions of dollars to the private sector and starve the public sector. Forget the President's statement on Mission Accomplished in Iraq. As far as destroying the federal civil service we are quickly headed for Mission Accomplished. There is nothing left in the budget for FY 05 and sometime soon Americans are going to realize just how wiped out the federal civil service really is-- but than of course our jobs can be done by contractors for twice the cost and half the results but that doesn't matter because the administration agenda will have been accomplished.

  Why any federal government employee would support an anti-government program is beyond me.

  GovExec.com reader Posted September 30, 2004 8:25 AM
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  Why is it that the rank and file government employee knows that contractors are ripping off the American taxpayer, but the supposed controllers have to wait for a AAA or GSA audit? By making contractor spending outside of "Military Government Spending", duping the public into thinking they are reducing "government" spending, and hiring contractors at levels able to award or recommend other contractors (friends), we wind up with substandard performance, unclear contract performance standards, and gee whiz, contracts awarded to pals without competition.

  GovExec.com reader Posted September 30, 2004 7:01 AM