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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: D. Long who wrote (131258)	8/10/2005 12:48:36 PM
From: Thomas A Watson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793727

Who writes the government's contracts? Well government's contracts may be written by government employees or contracted out. Often government contracts require some of the work by done with small affirmative action sub-contractor that get by by race and not qualifications to perform the work properly. The contractor of the first part is the US government and the problems are fixed on the contractor's dime. I believe that is in the contract. Early in my career, I worked on very large scale DOD contracts. Engineers are usually quite good at mitigating the dumb stuff lawyers put in contracts that really push up costs.

To: D. Long who wrote (131258)	8/10/2005 3:25:43 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793727

Who writes the government's contracts? The shipyards. I don't know which is worse. The yards, or the unions in the yards. It's a real outrage.

To: D. Long who wrote (131258)	8/10/2005 3:43:47 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793727

Government contracts are written by the government. Each agency has their own procurement department. Most of the work is done by non-lawyers who specialize in various steps along the way. They're always trying to streamline the process, but it's cumbersome for a reason. Uncle Sugar isn't supposed to play favorites, for one thing. And the very process that ensures that the public doesn't get ripped off is itself time consuming and costly. In this, as in anything, there is no free lunch. What private industry writes is bids, which are supposed to mirror the RFPs (Request for Proposals) that the agencies put out. The agency specifies pretty much exactly what it wants, but the contractors have the right to make suggestions when there is a better way of doing things, or a new way of doing things, and the agency can incorporate this into the contract. Federal procurement is an extremely complicated process. My copy of the FAR (Federal Acquisition Regulations) is almost 2 inches thick, full of regulations with sub-parts, and also sample documents that they require the contractors to use when they submit bids.