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It's hard to read this and not get the impression that firms used to lucrative government contracts are simply not keen at new competition and are lobbying to protect their privledged position. Despite the fact increased competition benefits the government and tax payers.

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That's exactly how I read it, myblake. I would hope that somebody on the House subcommittee said to the lobbyists something like "You, the lobbyist representing ITAPS, I see in my notes that ITAPS members include, among others, IBM, Deloitte, SAP, Xerox, and Microsoft. The 18F group has a staff of 185. If the companies you represent feel they can be out-performed by a staff of 185 then why have we been giving them billions of dollars all these years? Are they, in reality, completely incompetent?"

And regarding the conflict of interest issue, YC user zacharycohn, who says he works for 18F, wrote "As a government organization, not a private company, we can't respond to RFPs. No one is really sure where this claim that we help write and then respond to rfps comes from, but it's not true."

I don't see where the conflict of interest would come anyway even if 18F was bidding on contracts. If I ask a plumber for an estimate to fix my sink, and then decide to do the job myself, I don't see anything unethical there. The plumber might not like that I'm capable of doing the work myself, but there's nothing wrong with it. I could see a problem if the 18F staff stood to receive massive raises or bonuses if they decided to reject a vendor's bid and do the job themselves. But I don't think that's the way it works for government employees. At least not government employees at that level. The higher ups do make a good profit on campaign contributions or outright bribes. And that's why the software industry lobbyists will be listened to.

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