Hidden Bonuses Enrich Government Contractors at Taxpayer Cost

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Not Earmarks

When compared with all federal contracting, just a fraction of U.S. spending waste comes from so-called earmarks, which elected officials often criticize as the unnecessary pet projects of politicians.

The “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska, for example, had a price tag of $398 million. By contrast, the government spent $368.4 billion on all contracts in 2008, and Republican Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn estimates that about $100 billion of that was wasted.

U.S. spending on 3.7 million contracts in 2008 represented an increase of 76 percent over 2000 levels.

“We have a broken, broken system that rewards incompetence,” says Coburn, 60, who has been examining purchasing breakdowns since his election to Congress in 2005. “We need to totally change contracting.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aYYHKPn4DOe8&refer=news