Department of Government Efficiency - DOGE

[NorthDallas40]

Hopefully there is a new sheriff in town and those contractors will have to start being honest.

There really isn’t any such thing as an honest bid. There are rules compliant bids and non compliant bids. If a contractor knows up front that what the government is asking for spec wise won’t do what they want to do it isn’t their fault it’s the government’s for not knowing what the hell they are doing. And I know first hand in situations like that we’ve tried to educate the government about these kinds of discrepancies in the RFI and RFP phase but at the end of the day all contractors are going to put the lowest cost complying solution on the table because they know if they don’t they will get excluded. If we don’t like that then our government needs to modify their procurement process

 

[ButchPlz]

There really isn’t any such thing as an honest bid. There are rules compliant bids and non compliant bids. If a contractor knows up front that what the government is asking for spec wise won’t do what they want to do it isn’t their fault it’s the government’s for not knowing what the hell they are doing. And I know first hand in situations like that we’ve tried to educate the government about these kinds of discrepancies in the RFI and RFP phase but at the end of the day all contractors are going to put the lowest cost complying solution on the table because they know if they don’t they will get excluded. If we don’t like that then our government needs to modify their procurement process

The disconnect is often between procurement and technical. The actual technical experts almost always get railroaded by the bean counter procurement types (that, by the way, don't even know the FAR like they think they do) so you end up with some overly expensive product that doesn't even achieve the technical outcome desired, and usually makes things worse.

 

[SpaceCoastVol]

Hendricks Motorsports, sole source of providing Dale Jr car wrap graphics and Dale’s event attendances.
Between 25-40 million dollars per contract year, increasing substantially annually depending on which year you look at.

You can always write (pad) a sole source to justify the costs involved.

Wait, what? The .gov is paying Dale Earnhardt 25 million to advertise for them? What a ****ing patriot.

 

[SpaceCoastVol]

There really isn’t any such thing as an honest bid. There are rules compliant bids and non compliant bids. If a contractor knows up front that what the government is asking for spec wise won’t do what they want to do it isn’t their fault it’s the government’s for not knowing what the hell they are doing. And I know first hand in situations like that we’ve tried to educate the government about these kinds of discrepancies in the RFI and RFP phase but at the end of the day all contractors are going to put the lowest cost complying solution on the table because they know if they don’t they will get excluded. If we don’t like that then our government needs to modify their procurement process

I guess all this means that a contract is only a suggestion. Pathetic.

 

[SpaceCoastVol]

the new sheriff, who did exactly zero the last time around to curb those same contractors?

Yeah I am sure it is going to be exactly the same as last time. After all he is surrounding himself with all the same people.

 

[ButchPlz]

I guess all this means that a contract is only a suggestion. Pathetic.

The government is afraid of being put in front of the CFC so companies have a lot of free reign to define what is acceptable. And, like I said earlier, the actual technical experts' opinions usually fall somewhere near the bottom of the "this matters" list.

 

[SpaceCoastVol]

The government is afraid of being put in front of the CFC so companies have a lot of free reign to define what is acceptable. And, like I said earlier, the actual technical experts' opinions usually fall somewhere near the bottom of the "this matters" list.

Hopefully this is all going to change.

 

[hog88]

Hopefully this is all going to change.

I wouldn't hold my breath.

 

[ButchPlz]

Hopefully this is all going to change.

Well, until you remove useless layers of procurement people (i.e., an agency I work with puts products through 3-4 layers of "market research" to get to compliance, all the while the end users are in desperate need of the products and end up doing expensive split purchases on purchase cards to avoid the months of delay by pencil pushing dweebs) you won't get anywhere.

If I was in DOGE, I would start by eliminating most of those procurement offices that extend compliance requirements well beyond what the law actually requires and begin cutting through where OIGs, the GAO, etc. have deliberately (politically) misinterpreted the FAR to preserve useless jobs within every agency.

 

[SpaceCoastVol]

Well, until you remove useless layers of procurement people (i.e., an agency I work with puts products through 3-4 layers of "market research" to get to compliance, all the while the end users are in desperate need of the products and end up doing expensive split purchases on purchase cards to avoid the months of delay by pencil pushing dweebs) you won't get anywhere.

If I was in DOGE, I would start by eliminating most of those procurement offices that extend compliance requirements well beyond what the law actually requires and begin cutting through where OIGs, the GAO, etc. have deliberately (politically) misinterpreted the FAR to preserve useless jobs within every agency.

Isn't that the idea behind removing regulations?

 

[ButchPlz]

Isn't that the idea behind removing regulations?

It's actually a step further. My biggest challenges are largely procurement offices attempting to justify their existence by going beyond regulations. We need to get the power-tripping mid-level procurement people into McDonalds jobs.

 

[LouderVol]

Yeah I am sure it is going to be exactly the same as last time. After all he is surrounding himself with all the same people.

if any of the people actually had a history of cutting stuff, I would agree. for the most part they seem to be complete outsiders who aren't going to know what needs cutting vs what needs fixing. and the couple that aren't outsiders are swamp creature political yes men.

 

[NorthDallas40]

The disconnect is often between procurement and technical. The actual technical experts almost always get railroaded by the bean counter procurement types (that, by the way, don't even know the FAR like they think they do) so you end up with some overly expensive product that doesn't even achieve the technical outcome desired, and usually makes things worse.

Agreed. And I can assure you the engineering types don’t know the ITAR/FAR requirements we run from that stuff

 

[NorthDallas40]

I guess all this means that a contract is only a suggestion. Pathetic.

Oh it’s a legal and binding document it’s just that in this day and age it’s generated many times by people that have no clue what they want.

When I started in this industry almost 40 years ago the program side people in the government were very knowledgeable in whatever product they were trying to procure. That just isn’t the case across the board anymore. And factor on the complexity of a program like F-35 and there simply isn’t any one program office that effectively absorb and mange all of the technical concerns with the staff they have.

Believe it or not the peon level contractor employees believe in their products and understand what’s at stake. But nobody is going to fall on their sword and submit a non competitive bid just to make a meaningless point about the procurement process.

 

[SpaceCoastVol]

if any of the people actually had a history of cutting stuff, I would agree. for the most part they seem to be complete outsiders who aren't going to know what needs cutting vs what needs fixing. and the couple that aren't outsiders are swamp creature political yes men.

Yeah all those CEO types are idiots.

 

[NorthDallas40]

Hopefully this is all going to change.

It won’t. Finance rules the day across the board.

 

[SpaceCoastVol]

Oh it’s a legal and binding document it’s just that in this day and age it’s generated many times by people that have no clue what they want.

When I started in this industry almost 40 years ago the program side people in the government were very knowledgeable in whatever product they were trying to procure. That just isn’t the case across the board anymore. And factor on the complexity of a program like F-35 and there simply isn’t any one program office that effectively absorb and mange all of the technical concerns with the staff they have.

Believe it or not the peon level contractor employees believe in their products and understand what’s at stake. But nobody is going to fall on their sword and submit a non competitive bid just to make a meaningless point about the procurement process.

Isn't this the point of DOGE? To stop paying exorbitant amounts for non competitive, non enforced contacts? Maybe they will stop certain contractors from even bidding if they are taking the taxpayers for a ride time and time again.

One can hope anyway.

 

[NorthDallas40]

Isn't this the point of DOGE? To stop paying exorbitant amounts for non competitive, non enforced contacts? Maybe they will stop certain contractors from even bidding if they are taking the taxpayers for a ride time and time again.

One can hope anyway.

It’s a worthy cause and there is reason to be hopeful. This industry paid my salary for decades and I’ve been very open on how inefficient it is and costs need to be reigned in. Just temper your expectations is all

 

[SpaceCoastVol]

It’s a worthy cause and there is reason to be hopeful. This industry paid my salary for decades and I’ve been very open on how inefficient it is and costs need to be reigned in. Just temper your expectations is all

Like I was before the UGA game. I'm cautiously optimistic.
Musk fired 80% of the dweebs at Twitter. I hope he can fire 20% of the .gov. that will be epic.

 

[BigOrangeMojo]

@ButchPlz - Legitimate question

What percentage of fed budget do you think is waste and wouldnt be noticed if eliminated?

 

[utvolpj]

Like I was before the UGA game. I'm cautiously optimistic.
Musk fired 80% of the dweebs at Twitter. I hope he can fire 20% of the .gov. that will be epic.

it didn't really turn out well at twitter

 

[ButchPlz]

@ButchPlz - Legitimate question

What percentage of fed budget do you think is waste and wouldnt be noticed if eliminated?

I don't know about in the entire Federal budget.

In the subset of subsets of disposable products in which I work, I ID'd about $350M of savings to the agency and the taxpayer if proper procurement practices had been in place, just for FY24. Most of these procurement practices also would have eliminated an entire office out of the agency, which is another (I'd guess) $15M in salaries and benefits and other human-related costs. That office at the HQ level has about 80-90 employees doing the job of about 8.

I don't know how to expand that into the whole of government. Seeing what I've seen on some big weapons systems type projects (I don't have actual data, mind you) I'd guess in the hundreds of billions is not unrealistic. But again, that would be revolutionary change- but still not noticed, as far as the intent of your question is concerned.

 

[Vol423]

it didn't really turn out well at twitter

Why? Because Twitter stick decreased in market value? That's not an issue with the federal government.

 

[ButchPlz]

Agreed. And I can assure you the engineering types don’t know the ITAR/FAR requirements we run from that stuff

90% of "contracting professionals" don't know it or twist it to their own needs anyway.

 

[utvolpj]

Why? Because Twitter stick decreased in market value? That's not an issue with the federal government.

Because they could barely keep it up and running. They had to call back in people that were fired to put it back together. There were no big fixes or new feature releases.