President Obama tightens reins on contractors

[kpete]

Source: Politico

Ahead of remarks Monday by President Barack Obama about making government more efficient and effective, the White House Office of Management and Budget released details of the administration’s drive to tighten the government’s contracting practices.

“This is a situation that would never exist in a business,” Jeff Zients, Federal Chief Performance Officer and OMB Deputy Director for Management, told reporters on a conference call. “A business that had these kind of practices would have been out of business a long time ago. I believe we’re off to a really fast start here. There’s a lot of work to be done. And we’re going to clean up the situation and make sure there’s no waste, and we save as much money as possible.”

Asked how much of the effort was a response to Bush administration policies, and how much was a response to endemic waste and mismanagement, Zients replied: “Across the last six years of the prior administration, contracting doubled. At the same time, the workforce remained relatively flat. And I believe that in that doubling process, there was such a rush to outsource that there inevitably has been a marked increase in the reliance on high-risk contracting vehicles like the cost reimbursement. There’s been an underuse of competition. There are … too many contracts that are sole-source. So we have a lot of work to do to save money here and … bring best practices to contracting in the government.”

This spring, the administration plans to roll out an “online dashboard” that will allow the public to see the savings plans for agencies, and how they’re doing against their targets.



Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30858.html

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

1. Online Dashboard?

I hope the dashboard has plenty of "idiot lights". With a good "bullshit-o-meter" in the center.

So far, this administration has been a little disappointing in the "open-ness" arena, not quite living up to promises.

:hi:

[90-percent]

2. disappointment?

i tend to go for the hyperbolic in expressing myself.

therefore, my impression is that this is simply the third term of the Bush Administration run by a guy that can actually pronounce "nuclear" correctly.

-90% jimmy

[Frances]

7. This is Democratic Underground

A lot of people posting here seem to think it is Whiners Underground

[Eatacig]

3. C'mon Guys

:toast: Hey I know everyone is angry about Healthcare but don't cut your own throats because you're cutting mine to!!!!

[optimator]

4. a year after the $787 billion contractor bailout

EVERYONE knew there should be conditions and regulations attached to the "stimulus" bill, so its a little late to be crying about waste, competition and idiotic "dashboards."

[Winterblues]

5. "There are … too many contracts that are sole-source."

IOW "No-Bid Contracts" or another way of putting it would be "Friends of Bush*"

[peacetalksforall]

6. Interesting that this pre-announcement and announcement is one or two days after

a speech in Cuba against us for distributing cell phones and computers clandestinely throughout Cuba by a Maryland contractor authorized by the Obama administration.

Clandestinely, as it appears it was never arranged with the government in Cuba - WHICH WOULD HAVE REQUIRED NEGOTIATIONS - a skill that Obama and Clinton are capable of given their minds and experience.

Instead, the contractor is in jail in Cuba.

It's not just about costs and dashboards, it's about being honest and not spending taxpayer money on propaganda that makes a few rich. And, it does make certain people (contractors and Radio Marti people rich - INCLUDING CONGRESSPEOPLE who open their pockets to the payola for arranging the funds.

The contractor probably entered on a tourist visa to top it off. (How many two bit bets do you want to make that the contractor has a rabid anti-Castro connection to Miami and friend in the Senate and House?)

How did he get the cell phones and computers into the country?

Why did they believe they would not get caught.

What happened to trade agreements?

Why do we force ourselves on other people of this planet.

P.S. question: Was bidding allowed on the contract? Or was it sole source?

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. Hey, I've got a novel idea -

Get RID of the fucking contractors.

Let's see - you're in the military. You need equipment trucked in. Who would you rather have deliver the equipment? A contractor who gets paid whether the stuff gets into the field or not? Or a fellow soldier who knows that next time it could be HIM out there depending on the equipment getting there?

There is not a single job done by contractors today that was not done perfectly well by military personnel - at far less cost - in former years. That's why there are so many MOS's (are they still called that?) from cook to truck driver to helicopter mechanic to personnel clerk. Once upon a time a guy to go into the service to learn a trade, a skill, that he could take with him upon leaving - but with contractors taking over all non-combat duties the only skills for a poor kid from the sticks or the ghetto to learn is shooting people - real valuable upon getting your discharge.

Maybe, just maybe, recruiters would have an easier time getting recruits if the kids signing up had options other than 'target'.

[Jivenwail]

10. Getting Rid of Contractors

I don't post here much any more because there seems to be so much infighting among us. However I do have to make this comment - I am one of the "fucking contractors" that you would put out of work if you had your way. Please think about the facts here - not all government contractors are wasteful or gouging the federal government. You simply don't know about all the smaller companies (like mine) who provide services to our fighting men and women that actually work to save their lives - and we employ almost entirely former military service members to do that exact work. The people we employ who go downrange and in theaters of Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait install the counter IED devices on the vehicles that our service members drive and ride in order to do their assigned jobs. Our employees train on how to install and maintain them and train the Army and Marines in their usage - and these systems have saved countless lives over and over again. Our employees get shot at and shot down just the same because the work they do is inherently dangerous - and they choose to do this work because it's meaningful, rewarding and because most people simply wouldn't want to do it because of the danger involved.

I'm not justifying the horrendous things that larger contractors (including Blackwater or whatever name they go by these days) have been accused of doing and they should be stopped. But please do not think for one minute that all of us who work in government contracting are all the same - we are not. We provide incredibly important support in a variety of ways to those who are fighting wars, justifiable or not. And if you "get rid of the fucking contractors" you will not only impede the work that most of us do well and honestly but you will also be putting thousands of hard-working people out of work and on the streets - does your comment still stand? Do you also want that on your conscious as well? I don't pretend to try and tell you - or anyone else- how to feel or what to say. All I ask is that you please think about this and consider that there is a lot of good work being done in the area of government contracting and just because there are a bunch of bad apples who get all the headlines doesn't mean we are all the same - - we are not. We go about our work diligently, carefully and with due purpose and don't seek headlines. We are proud of what we do and we will continue to do it as long as it is necessary to keep on saving the lives of our military men and women who put themselves in harm's way every day they are in theater.

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. Sorry, but if you, or any of your people, are making more than 50k/yr

you ARE part of the problem.

You "employ almost entirely former military service members to do that exact work" - meaning, you are taking that skill set AWAY from the military and profiting by it. Why would anyone want to stay in after 6 years, making 50K, when they can sign on with a company to do the same job making 100K?

The entire concept of privatizing the military is flawed. The fact that you make your living at it, and do your job well, doesn't change it.

[JDPriestly]

15. Jivenwail, I'm sure your company is doing its best.

But, please note: the last war we out-and-out won was WWII. It was the toughest we ever fought, but we won it.

By the way, in WWII, drafted soldiers cooked and washed the pots and pans and supplied the troops. We used contractors but relatively few.

In Viet Nam, Johnson increased the number of private contractors. His dear friends and supporters at Brown & Root (now Halliburton) were hired to pave a good portion of Viet Nam -- we needed lots of airfields, you know.

The rest is history. In marched the private contractors. Out marched enlisted soldiers and the draft. And after that, let's see, I think we "won" in Grenada and Haiti and Panama and other tiny little places if you call what we did "winning."

So, I oppose the extent of our use of military contractors not because they are bad people but because their involvement in our military actions may be the reason that our military is less efficient and successful.

Anyone who has worked in a business knows that the sense of teamwork, of we're in this together, we are fighting for each other, makes for success. Contractors are not really part of the team. They don't make the same kinds of sacrifices that the soldiers make. We need to return to a military that, in so far as possible, is a team of people who are sacrificing for their country.

[boilerette]

20. Getting Rid of Contractors?

Well... lets see how the equipment is "trucked" in... Well, since trucks don't float too well, equipment is generally shipped in. That shipping is done by a Navy command called the Military Sealift Command. Many of MSC's employees are government employees, mainly Civilian Mariners.

Those Civilian Mariners need to get paid (or else they'll go on strike b/c they belong to a union). They get paid because Payroll enters information into a payroll system.

Guess who operates that payroll system? Guess who keeps that system safe from cyber attacks? Guess who upgrades that system when it becomes obsolete... or, when new functionality is needed to support new business requirements...

contractors... the Government folks are busy running the government, the contractors are busy running the systems that support their efforts. We are all one team.


Oh, and one more thing.. guess who keeps the government running when there's 2 feet of snow in Washington and they give the feds a day off? The contractors.

[tomm2thumbs]

9. damn, I thought this was about Blackwater - guess not

we need to give them mercenary types a new name besides 'contractors' - it gives them too much credit and gives contractors a bad name

[quaker bill]

12. Everything and I mean everything

is contracted these days. Last I checked, Lockheed Martin is handling the processing of supplemental nutrition (food stamps). In some states, they are also contracted to handle welfare and child support enforcement. This is way bigger than military support missions. The Bush brothers were very and I mean Very Big believers in outsourcing government services to the private sector. I would put a dollar on the notion that food safety inspectors are , at least in part, contractors. There is no aspect of government that these gentlemen found exempt from the drive to outsource.

Blackwater and Halliburton may have become famous for it, but they aren't your only "no bid" contractors. My dollar says they are everywhere, EPA, interior department, HUD......

[JDPriestly]

17. Contracting means no pension rights, no health insurance rights,

no civil service examinations, no civil service job security.


Some people say that the Republicans are trying to repeal all of FDR's too. Fact is, they are also trying to repeal all of Teddy Roosevelt's reforms too especially the civil service structure.

We are back to the old payola. And it will only get worse. We need to return to a civil service in which employees are tested for their ability to do the job before they are hired by the government.

[quaker bill]

19. All that and more

Despite the lower pay, loss of job security, and minimal benefits (if any), contractors generally cost more in dollars for service delivered.

For a period of time while serving under JEB, I was required to outsource contract many things. It was generally a very expensive way to deliver the same or lower quality product. I typically could have hired half again to twice the staff for the costs with generous benefits, but this was absolutely prohibited.

It was also well known to JEB that government employees tend to vote Democratic in overwhelming numbers. I do not believe that the policy / politics nexus of all this went un-noticed.

[Wizard777]

13. Bingo! We have a winner folks. This is the Obama I voted for.

It's great to have him back.

[JDPriestly]

14. This is good news.

[jonathan_seer]

16. Dismissing the needed wholesale changes Obama is making because of the health care debacle is stupid

Under Bush our food safety went to hell.

Companies got away with shipping and selling salmonella contaminated food. The current lack of control re: meat industry safety is reason alone to become a vegetarian, if ONLY you didn't face the risk of getting e coli thanks to farmers using raw farm waste to water their vegetable crops as allowed under Bush

Importers quickly realized that instead of 1 in 100 containers being inspected Bush cut it to about 1 in 10,000. Which meant importers no longer felt the need to obey our rules, because the likelihood o being caught was nil, thus the lead in children's toys, melamine spiked food, poison pet food from China.

Drug companies started cheating on their testing, because the FDA under Bush felt like a roadblock to progress.

No Bid contracts became the norm.

The world of Finance became the world of high stakes unregulated gambling.

Pollution enforcement withered.

OSHA was turned into an assistant to corporations to help them avoid fines for breaking the law.

The Labor department became an agency focused on ensuring American workers had little or no rights vs. a vs. their employer.

The ROT in Government installed by Team Bush is far worse than the health care situation.

On this topic, Obama is holding true to his promises, and it's more than enough for me to overlook his failing on health care.

He is succeeding but it takes a lot of time to undo 8 years of corruption.

The good that the nation will derive should he complete the majority of these actions will be many times greater than the benefit of universal health care.

Unfortunately health care is a big VERY VISIBLE piece of the pie, and these things together which are far more important than anything else are all but invisible even to Democrats, because of the laser like focus of the American Corporate News Establishment. Few are aware of just how important these issues are, and how many lives, jobs Etc. lost to this sort of thing.

So yeah I'm pissed off, seriously disappointed re: health care. I hate the Senate bill, but in terms of restoring Government to its proper regulatory role Obama is doing the job he promised. The reason being is health care would be a "new" something. If it utterly fails I didn't lose anything I ever had. The restoration of the Government's regulatory role, and proper position vs. a vs. contractors Etc. we ALL lost recently, and is a huge part of why we as a nation are looking at such a grey future.

Give him credit for this. It is possibly the most important thing he can accomplish without compromise and is.

Also give him time. Reversing 8yrs. of wholesale, purposeful neglect takes a lot longer than 12 months.

[jasi2006]

18. Obama needs to look at all those "contractors" who joined the Civil Service ranks

just before Bush and the Republicans left office. Career civil servants get bad reputations because these political appointees joine the civil service ranks just befor administrations change. The inbeds often work inside the ranks to scuttle new administration policies. They are often placed in positios at higher ranks than many of the careerists who often train and carry out most of the work these apointees are hired for. Take it from me, they join the career ranks to rake in the benefits and high salaries of career managers without having to compete for the positions.

[Synicus Maximus]

21. Every administration promises to cut waste and clean up

contracting practices. Every President since at least Eisenhower has said basically the same thing. I wish President Obama luck and hope something gets done this time, but I won't be holding my breath.