The Problem is Procurement
8th November 2010
Remember the movies where the CIA and other government agencies have all of this sophisticated fancy equipment? Forget it. That’s fantasy, not reality.
The unsexy answer to this debate is that how government spends our money is just as important as what it spends it on. “Federal Procurement” is the process by which the federal government buys things. It’s governed in the 2,000+ page Federal Acquisition Regulation and the similarly sized Defense Acquisitions Regulations System. These tomes sit at the very root of all of the major issues we face today.
The Federal Acquisition Regulation is meant to optimize the dollars spent by the federal government. It’s designed to get government the best price for what it purchases, and it’s designed to make sure that those dollars get spent in a way that creates meaningful social impact. It fails at both, and in some cases— succeeds more at doing the opposite. It keeps small businesses under the thumbs of big ones, and creates so much overhead that government gets outrageous prices.
This foundational regulation that affects all of government is completely and totally broken. One need only look at CIO-Of-The-Federal-Government Vivek Kundra’s desk for the evidence. Last time I was in there, he had a 17″ all in one Gateway computer sitting on it because regulations prohibit him from buying a reasonable machine. He’s the CIO!