Federal No-Bid Contracts On Rise

Source: WP

Under pressure from the White House and Congress to deliver a long-delayed plan last year, officials at the Department of Homeland Security's counter-narcotics office took a shortcut that has become common at federal agencies: They hired help through a no-bid contract.

And the firm they hired showed them how to do it.

Scott Chronister, a senior official in the Office of Counternarcotics Enforcement, reached out to a former colleague at a private consulting firm for advice. The consultant suggested that Chronister's office could avoid competition and get the work done quickly under an arrangement in which the firm "approached the government with a 'unique and innovative concept,' " documents and interviews show.

...

A recent congressional report estimated that federal spending on contracts awarded without "full and open" competition has tripled, to $207 billion, since 2000, with a $60 billion increase last year alone. The category includes deals in which officials take advantage of provisions allowing them to sidestep competition for speed and convenience and cases in which the government sharply limits the number of bidders or expands work under open-ended contracts.

Government auditors say the result is often higher prices for taxpayers and an undue reliance on a limited number of contractors.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/22/AR2007082200049.html

for their corp pals.:banghead:

The are PROUD of them. Shows they aren't just a bunch of Liberal Weakling, obeying the law and wussy stuff like that.

As if desiring a repeat of the dance between Hitler and the German Social Democrats, our Democrats are more than happy to let all these crimes go "for the good of the nation".

'unique and innovative concept' to no bid a contract does have it's place, deals of that nature should be under closer scrutiny