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Comment by yompers888 | Hacker News Reader

Could you elaborate on who benefits from a poor procurement system? Does it benefit them in that in conforms to their ideology, or does it do so tangibly? I'm familiar with people being in favor of government being cumbersome, but I can't picture how someone within government who has the power to effect this change would support this.

Edit: 'this' in the last sentence ambiguously refers to the nauseatingly lengthy and tedious process currently in place.

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The complexity of the current procurement system means that only giant contractors with an office of red tape experts can effectively bid on the big contracts. These giant contractors get giant and hugely profitable contracts which would have required more competitive bids with a less broken procurement system. In turn the giant contractors reward the politicians that keep the system working in their favor with campaign contributions, hefty speaking fees, cushy positions after leaving elected office, and so on.

Mostly yes. They also don't actually do much of the real work, they subcontract that out to smaller firms after taking their rent.

Via http://warisboring.com/articles/the-pentagons-pricey-culture... :

"The root of the problem is the revolving door between the Pentagon and private military contractors.

Remember the big white blimp that broke free from its mooring in Maryland last year and floated across rural Pennsylvania? That’s a good example of an underperforming and expensive military program the government should have canceled years ago.

In fact, the Army did try to cut the program, officially called JLENS, in 2010 — only to have then-vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. James Cartwright, rescue it. Shortly after his retirement from the Marine Corps in 2011, Cartwright joined the board of directors of Raytheon, the prime contractor for — you guessed it — the JLENS.

Support the change, retire from government, get a cushy job on the board of some defense contractor.

Edit:

To support what I say check out Raytheon's board of directors[1], maybe a third of them retired from the military, worked from the DoD, and one guy was the principal White House foreign policy advisor to President George W. Bush.

[1]http://investor.raytheon.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=84193&p=irol-go...

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