Government contracting and its increased role in controling our government

At the request of Rep. Henry A. Waxman, this report is the first comprehensive assessment of federal contracting under the Bush Administration. The report reaches three primary conclusions:

• Procurement Spending Is Accelerating Rapidly. Between 2000 and 2005, procurement spending rose by 86% to $377.5 billion annually. Spending on federal contracts grew over twice as fast as other discretionary federal spending. Under President Bush, the federal government is now spending nearly 40 cents of every discretionary dollar on contracts with private companies, a record level.
• Contract Mismanagement Is Widespread. The growth in federal contracts has been accompanied by pervasive mismanagement. Mistakes have been made in virtually every step of the contracting process: from pre-contract planning through contract award and oversight to recovery of contract overcharges.
• The Costs to the Taxpayer Are Enormous. The report identifies 118 federal contracts worth $745.5 billion that have been found by government officials to include significant waste, fraud, abuse, or mismanagement. Each of the Bush Administration’s three signature initiatives — homeland security, the war and reconstruction in Iraq, and Hurricane Katrina recovery — has been characterized by wasteful contract spending.

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"'There has been a very quiet revolution in how the government performs its functions,' says Katherine Schinasi, one of the top officials at the GAO."
"I think what worries me most is we are not sure how we got here," Schinasi says, "and we're not sure why we're here and, most troubling to me, whose interest is being represented. I believe that this is one of the most important issues that the new administration and subsequent administrations have to face."

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On NPR this morning, someone finally said out loud what Reagan apologists refuse to admit about privatization. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac replaced standard governmental procedures of providing money for mortgages through the FHA. They are privately held companies distributing public money. What this has created is not really privatization, because the companies are only privatized for distributing profits; and losses are absorbed by the government -- you. So, like all of the Republican scams, we have privatization of gains and socialization of losses. Nice.

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But investigators at the GAO say the Bush administration has gone way beyond hiring industry to trim bushes or process paychecks. They've hired more corporations than ever to help make decisions on behalf of the government.
Schinasi says it suddenly hit her one day a few years ago. She went to a top-level meeting at a military command post. She walked into the conference room, and she had no idea who anybody was. She says she stopped and went around the table, asking people who they worked for.
"There were several people who worked for the military command, but the majority of people sitting at the table worked for contractors," she says.
The GAO staff has investigated contracts all across the government. Schinasi says that in many cases, officials at the agencies hardly even supervise the corporations they've hired. So, she says, they can't answer the most basic questions about what the companies are doing — including how many contractors have done a good job or a bad job, and whether they have saved or wasted taxpayers' money.

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