The answer to just about everything in government lately has been to contract any and all jobs out to private companies. As the New York Times notes, the response to not having people in government to investigate contractors' fraud has been to -- you guessed it -- hire yet another private contractor to investigate.
Congress -- now that the opposition is in charge -- is asking questions. Fraud and incompetence are rife, but they're not the only problems. There is little real competition in getting contracts, and jobs involving both private citizens' information and state secrets are being contracted out, in spite of government regulations. The work being done by private contractors is neither cheaper nor more competently done. The "best" contractors don't do better work, they just know how to sell themselves better to the government. The public isn't allowed to monitor private contractors as it does government workers -- which usually means greater fraud and incompetence.
The contracting surge has raised bipartisan alarms. A just-completed study by experts appointed by the White House and Congress, the Acquisition Advisory Panel, found that the trend “poses a threat to the government’s long-term ability to perform its mission” and could “undermine the integrity of the government’s decision making.”
Take, for example the consulting group BearingPoint:
The State Department, for instance, pays more than $2 million a year to BearingPoint, the consulting giant, to provide support for Iraq policy making, running software, preparing meeting agendas and keeping minutes. State Department officials insist that the company’s workers, who hold security clearances, merely relieve diplomats of administrative tasks and never influence policy.
Maybe they're not that interested in policy, except the Bush administration's contracting policies giving them huge profits from jobs the government should be doing. Money trumps just about everything.
Joe Haddock, a Sikorsky Helicopters executive, summed up the tone of the session. “To us contractors,” Mr. Haddock said, “money is always a good thing.”
