Contracting

Great article in the NYT today on the pitfalls of the Bush administration's devotion to outsourcing. The problem, in my mind, isn't outsourcing or privatization per se (letting the Pentagon buy glasses from the private sector rather than maintaining its own optometrists seems smart; the same goes for jobs like landscaping and garbage removal), but the current situation doesn't involve enough competitive bidding, and gives private businesses some jobs that really should remain with the government.

It's really worth reading the whole article, but the following nuggets give the flavor of the piece:

• "Indeed, the biggest federal contractor, Lockheed Martin, which has spent $53
  million on lobbying and $6 million on donations since 2000, gets more federal
  money each year than the Departments of Justice or Energy."
• “Billions of dollars are being squandered, and the taxpayer is being taken to the cleaners,” said Mr. Waxman, who got an “F” rating last year from the Contract Services Association, an industry coalition. The chairman he succeeded, Representative Thomas M. Davis III, Republican of Virginia, earned an “A.”
• "with troops short in Iraq, Congress in 2003 waived a ban on the use of private security guards to protect military bases in the United States. The results for the first $733 million were dismal...The Army spent 25 percent more than it had to because it used sole-source contracts at 46 of 57 sites, the investigators concluded. And screening of guards was so lax that at one base, 61 guards were hired despite criminal records, auditors reported. Yet the Army gave the contractors more than $18 million in incentive payments intended to reward good performance."