A Democrat is in the White House. The economy is a mess. There is troubling news coming out of Afghanistan and Iran. The Pittsburgh Steelers are Super Bowl champions. U2 is playing tiny clubs and bars.
And the GAO releases a report highlighting serious problems in the federal contracting system.
Was this GAO report--a review of federal consulting service contracts--released in the last few weeks? Nope. The report, published by the GAO when it was still called the General Accounting Office, came out way back in March 1980. Judging from its tone and content, however, you'd swear it was from March 2009.
The report found “serious, pervasive problems” in the federal government's procurement of consulting services, defined as “services of a purely advisory nature relating to the governmental functions of agency administration and management and agency program management.” Almost word for word, the problems identified in the report still plague the contracting system today: awarding contracts without first considering in-house capability; overuse of risky contracting vehicles; conflicts of interest and revolving door abuses; contract modifications and extensions causing unnecessary costs and delays; contractors performing inherently governmental functions (apparently, the preferred term in 1980 was “work of a policymaking or managerial nature”); and ineffective oversight of contracts and contractors.
The point of this little trip down memory lane is two-fold: First, getting a first-hand account of the problems in the federal contracting system of yesteryear helps put today's system, warts and all, in perspective. It's strangely reassuring to know that most of today's problems have been around for decades. Second, that "Terrible Towel" thing is really, really annoying.
-- Neil Gordon (a Ravens fan)
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