Pentagon suppliers duck competition?

[Todd33]

http://money.cnn.com/2004/09/3...economy/pentagon.reut/

The Pentagon's biggest suppliers have won most of their prime contracts in recent years -- hundreds of billions of dollars' worth -- without going through a competitive process, a government watchdog group reported Wednesday.

In a survey of 2.2 million contract actions totaling $900 billion in authorized spending from fiscal 1998 to 2003, the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity also found that half of the Defense Department's budget was going to private contractors, not direct costs such as payrolls for the armed services.

What the Pentagon calls "full and open competition" involves either sealed bids, competitive proposals or a combination of the two in an effort to keep costs down and quality up.

Overall, no-bid contracts, totaling $362 billion, have accounted for more than 40 percent of all Pentagon contracts awarded during the six-year period studied, the study found.

The least competitive area was for guided missiles, where 96 percent of deals were awarded without full and open competition.

This is bad for tax payers in general. If you are against welfare, you should be against this type of stuff as well, which cost us far more. This isn't anti Bush or anti military, it's anti waste.

 

[rahvin]

Because as we all know awarding work to the low bid contractor always gets you the best quality work.

 

[NesuD]

Originally posted by: Todd33
http://money.cnn.com/2004/09/3...economy/pentagon.reut/

The least competitive area was for guided missiles, where 96 percent of deals were awarded without full and open competition.

honestly I don't think that a competitive bid process would be the best way to award contracts for something as technically complex as a guided missle. I think in this case reliability and performance are far more important than price. Fact is there are some things that just aren't properly served by a competitive bidding process. I don't find this at all surprising in the DOD nor do I find it particularly disturbing. I think if someone does the foorwork that you will find this is pretty normal throughout that last several administrations.

 

[burnedout]

The least competitive area was for guided missiles, where 96 percent of deals were awarded without full and open competition.

Yeah, like everybody and their brother can produce "guided missiles".

 

[MonkeyK]

I'm not so sure that this is as bad as it seems. What is the $ threshold for when it is useful to go through bidding process?

900 billion/ 2.2 million = ~ 500k/contract Factor in some very large contract (that should get scrutiny for not being competitive) and you are left with a lot of very small contract, for which it is probably not worth going through a bidding process.

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: Todd33
http://money.cnn.com/2004/09/3...economy/pentagon.reut/

The Pentagon's biggest suppliers have won most of their prime contracts in recent years -- hundreds of billions of dollars' worth -- without going through a competitive process, a government watchdog group reported Wednesday.

In a survey of 2.2 million contract actions totaling $900 billion in authorized spending from fiscal 1998 to 2003, the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity also found that half of the Defense Department's budget was going to private contractors, not direct costs such as payrolls for the armed services.

What the Pentagon calls "full and open competition" involves either sealed bids, competitive proposals or a combination of the two in an effort to keep costs down and quality up.

Overall, no-bid contracts, totaling $362 billion, have accounted for more than 40 percent of all Pentagon contracts awarded during the six-year period studied, the study found.

The least competitive area was for guided missiles, where 96 percent of deals were awarded without full and open competition.

This is bad for tax payers in general. If you are against welfare, you should be against this type of stuff as well, which cost us far more. This isn't anti Bush or anti military, it's anti waste.

So? Once the DoD recognizes the work of a contractor, they frequently give that contractor more jobs based on their past work, wihtout opening up the field to others. These aren't typically the type of contracts that you want to broadcast to as many people as possible and take the lowest bid on, now are they?

 

[xxxxxJohnGaltxxxxx]

..will someone remind me who it was in Bosnia that built my shower, served my chow, and made wooden frames to hold my G.P. Medium? Wait, I think I remember...Clinton set....say it isn't so....Halliburton and KBR?

 

[Todd33]

I love how the righties assume this thread was anti-Bush when they saw "No bids contracts" and jumped on the defensive. People need to click the link and read the story.

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: Todd33
I love how the righties assume this thread was anti-Bush when they saw "No bids contracts" and jumped on the defensive. People need to click the link and read the story.

And I love how you always manage to dodge anyone who makes legitimate points opposite of yours and, instead, focus of the low-hanging "Whaa.. the neocons are getting defensive" fruit. :roll:

Seriously, rahvin, NesuD, and MonkeyK all made insighful arguments against your position, after obviously reading the text and article, but you feel they aren't worthy of discussion for some reason? Maybe you are a hack, like all the 'righties' seem to think.

 

[Todd33]

So competition is good for the free market, where it brings prices down and quality up, but it doesn't apply to the military or the government? I think Reagan is rolling over in his grave about now.

Once the DoD recognizes the work of a contractor, they frequently give that contractor more jobs based on their past work

That's just a cop out. That's not how the DoD works. It does not say "Good job on the titanium wrench, here is a $200B jet fighter contract!". The bidding mechanism has worked for over fifty years, it has produced some of the best civilian and fighter jets, tanks, rifles, etc. Now we are seeing more 'pat-my-back, I'll pat yours' type stuff and you guys defend it thinking somehow the Republicans are behind it, so it must be good. People love to rail on about welfare, this is just another form.

I just posted the article, I was trying to get a conversation going on something other than Bush-Kerry.

 

[ReiAyanami]

but still, that's nearly a trillion $$$, just pile it onto the other $8 trillion debt, expected to top $10 trillion in just the next 10 years. in your lifetime, at this rate natl debt could feasibly outweigh ALL US assets (something like $47 trillion)

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: Todd33

Once the DoD recognizes the work of a contractor, they frequently give that contractor more jobs based on their past work

That's just a cop out. That's not how the DoD works. It does not say "Good job on the titanium wrench, here is a $200B jet fighter contract!". The bidding mechanism has worked for over fifty years, it has produced some of the best civilian and fighter jets, tanks, rifles, etc. Now we are seeing more 'pat-my-back, I'll pat yours' type stuff and you guys defend it thinking somehow the Republicans are behind it, so it must be good. People love to rail on about welfare, this is just another form.

No, it's more like a contractor makes some X4 missiles under a competitive bid for the DoD. A few years later, the Navy decides they want a few new features, so the DoD decides to give the X5 contract to the original contractor, based on their performance and delivery of their previous model. I don't see the "wrongness" of that. That's not welfare, or mutual back-patting (not that those types of things don't happen, I'm sure they do), but rather good business.

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: ReiAyanami
but still, that's nearly a trillion $$$, just pile it onto the other $8 trillion debt, expected to top $10 trillion in just the next 10 years. in your lifetime, at this rate natl debt could feasibly outweigh ALL US assets (something like $47 trillion)

And this relates to the issue of non-competitive bids, how?

 

[CaptnKirk]

Yeah, like everybody and their brother can produce "guided missiles".

I can !