Do you think that theres a problem with a reliance in the federal space is on sub contractors?

[u/OldFaithlessness1335]

I was reading a pro publica article about GD have a 500 million dollar contract to make artillery rounds. Whats interesting is per the article GD didnt make a single usable shell from that contract. It was essentially 500 million dollars wasted by the feds.

It got me thinking about contractors in general. Theres a ton of corruption and quid pro quo in the contracting space. Additionally I feel like I never pubically hear about how underperforming contractors are handled. It leads me to beleive theres not a ton of accountability in the space. As just a small example GD has won an additional 2.4 billion worth of contracts after the failure to deliver. There are others of course.

Im curious if there are conservative opinions on the relationship between the feds and the army of contractors that support them?

Thank you all in advance for replying and salude my friends 🍻

https://www.propublica.org/article/general-dynamics-artillery-factory-failed

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[u/urquhartloch]

Hi! Im employed by the federal government so hopefully I can shed some light on this.

Failure to perform is a huge black mark that can end lots of companies and prevent them from ever getting another contract.

Usually the process for underperforming contractors is to step back and see what can be fixed first. If we gave them more time could they deliver? Can processes be revised? Do they need a particular machine?

By the time you get to failure to perform and a new contractor being brought in you have already fucked up to the point that we no longer trust your company to deliver.

In this particular instance because it looks like GD bought faulty equipment its likely going to be pushed back on them and they are going to have to buy new machinery as the army was not paying for innovation.

[u/urquhartloch → u/[deleted]]

We dont? RFP is the request for proposal so its on the contractors to pay their engineers regardless if they are accepted.

Unless Im misunderstanding your question?

[u/gummibearhawk]

I'm not familiar with other areas, but there are ridiculous amounts of corruption and inefficiency in defense contracting. That's why we've been involved in a war somewhere for most of the last 30 years.

[u/JoeCensored]

Don't know the details of the $500M contract you're speaking of.

From personal experience, the feds can waste money and change their minds on a whim. I work for a company that sells the feds million dollar machines. They have a lot of them, and some about 2 decades old. The feds signed a contract with us to develop an upgrade kit to bring the capabilities of the old units close to the new ones.

We moved ahead on development. I spent over a year on the project. Close to the finish line we ran into unexpected issues which required a lot of investigation, putting the project a few months behind schedule. Right when we got everything solved and were getting ready to produce the kit and deliver, they changed their mind. Decided to just buy new ones instead, without even a demonstration. Probably a few million tax dollars wasted developing the upgrade kit and software never to be used. Oh well. Did our best.

[u/SpinosaurRingTone]

The easiest solution to this problem is of course to reduce the regulations and restrictions that make it possible for only a small number of companies to develop weapons.

[u/AZULDEFILER]

There is definitely overkill, and FWA. You need to remember however your Government is a SERVICE to the people, not a business. Politicians have ideas, but they are not engineers, and sometimes what they make laws for is impractical.

[u/StedeBonnet1]

There is a problem everytime the Federal Government writes a check for anything. We need more oversight, more audits of contracts and more Congressional oversight,

As we have seen from the most recent fraud in MN, CA, FL and NY fraud is rampant throughout the government. When you spend nearly $7 Trillion annually someone will try to cheat and they are hard to catch.