Procurement Quotes

The George W. Bush administration was a throwback to an earlier era where such a spoils system was operational. Reforms had almost eliminated this type of contractor political favoritism but a culture of political corruption had developed in Congress and the Executive branch in the early 21st century that was more reminiscent of a more than a hundred years earlier. See {589738} for one of the examples that triggered the editorial.

The Pentagon has the largest budget of any operational government department and makes the most procurements of government agencies. So even if their proportional share of waste were the same as all the other agencies, it would appear, there would be more examples for people to see from the Pentagon. Unfortunately the proportion is very different with a much higher proportion of no bid (sole source contracts). a much higher proporton of moneys spent for which they could not even account. far fewer checks on the procurement officials. The armed services are not all alike howevever. The Army was generally much better than the other services except during the Iraq War reconstruction. The Navy however was by far the worst of the armed services in terms of waste and avoiding the checks and balances of procurement reviews and procedures.

He was referring to the famous Eisenhower quotation of 1961. See {641114}.

He and the other commissioners of both political parties were agreed that the procurement by The State Department, USAID, and especially the Defense Department which spent the most was terrible. The even had military generals in charge of billions of dollars of procurement who did not even know the procurement laws and regulations they were supposed to obey much less the skill of good procurement.

See {637982} for one of the major reasons.

The Congress wants to keep control of exactly what the Pentagon buys so that each member can try to get more than his fair share of the Federal dollar. But the Congressional budget process is usually slow, and with the recent Congresses they can hardly get anything done. The President nor the Secretary of Defense cannot stop or slow down procurements that are not needed or can be deferred and spend the already appropriated funds on emergency needs for the troops fighting in the field.

The Senator throughout most of his career identified cases of waste or government officials treating themselves to luxury. The Navy has always been the worst of the military services in this respect, and the military is far more wasteful than the civilian end of the government.

The debate over whether the government ought to buy what it needs in the marketplace is as old as our country. Despite men like Jefferson having been strong advocates for market purchases of goods and services for government, there is even by the 21st century a marked tendency to have government actually do the needed work and create the needed merchandise. Even when the private sector is used, the market is avoided by sole source, non-competitive contracts and in the case of military research the National Laboratories were created which are means of avoiding the competitive marketplace and have the work done by entities that are Federal proxies.

Fogleman came out of retirement at the request of Air Force General Bernard Schriever, Commander of Air Force Systems Command, which was responsible for acquiring all missiles. He oversaw 40 percent of the Air Force budget most of which was spend on procurement contracts with companies. Schreiver wanted an experienced business man to oversee his procurement. In 1964 Foglemen volunteered to start up and train the procurement department for Sargent Shriver, President Johnson’s designee to direct the War on Poverty. 210 Job Corps Centers had to be constructed and corporations hired to operate the largest ones—all within a two year span. Fogleman faced the same problem where the Federal officials responsible for the Job Corp had very little business experience. He was very successful and persuaded Shriver and his key staff to hire a cadre of people with business experience and pay them at the high end of the Federal pay scale. The unit met the President’s deadline and obtained great prices, making exemplary use of taxpayer’s money. Fogleman retired for the third time, and after a few years the Job Corps was transferred to the Labor Department and the typical government procurement staff and norms began to operate. Forlleman and General Schreiber were unable to institutionalize Fogleman’s methods and after the General retired, the command that had been so effective for a few years, reverted to standard DOD procurement. See {634893} for a quotation of one of Fogleman’s trainees on military procurement.

Wilson appears to be the first to use the "bang for the buck" phrase. In this original use, it was less of a metaphor than it usually in as it described atomic testing.

This quotation illustrates a political phenomenon that used to be common in American politics—the spoils system where government activities, positions, contracts and grants were awarded to the supporters of the winning party and not to the opponents. In modern times government contracts were supposed to have been awarded on the basis of qualifications and price and not conditioned on political support. In this rare quotation, the secretary admitted to violating his own Department’s regulations and using politics as a criteria where existing laws prohibited that.

In 1968, Fitzgerald reported a $2.3 billion cost overrun in the Lockheed C-5 aircraft program. As a congressional witness before the Joint Economic Committee, he rejected the advice of Air Force officials to not tell the truth and testified with candor and transparency about billions of dollars in avionics program cost overruns and other technical problems enormously embarrassing the Defense Department and the Nixon Administration procurement practices. In response to Mr. Fitzgerald’s testimony, President Richard M. Nixon directed that he be fired. See {636749}.

Typically then and now, members of Congress would have their staffs call Federal officials implying endorsement for constituent companies, and if a contract ensued would imply to the constituent that the member had something to do with it. In some cases, they would pressure the agency to award contracts to their constituents. Douglas had the highest ethical standards and was unique in that he made the calls himself so that he should personally tell the official that there should be no special treatment for his constituent and would personally tell the constituent that other than helping them find Federal business opportunities, he would not be of additional assistance.

The Mishnah was the first written codification of ancient Jewish laws and interpretations. The Books of Moses--the first 5 Books of the Old Testament was the fundamental law--God's law. The Mishnah was a combintion of administative and policy manuals and judicial precedents.

There are 207,000 procurement personnel in the government who are required to follow the 1,600 page FAR (Federal Acquisition Regulations) guidelines and, in the case of the DoD, the 1,600+ page D-FARS overlay to the FAR covering military contracting.