No Bid Government Contracts Highlight America's Corporatocracy

click image to enlarge

Corporatocracy is distinctly the dominant practice when it comes to doing business with the federal government. The once embryonic relationships between favored companies and agency bureaucrats, have germinated into distinctive hybrid organisms. Grafting into self-generating species resistant and virtually immune from pest control methods can be found in every area of government expenditures. The big daddy of cozy dealing is that preverbal military-industrial-security complex.

Who can forget all the government money spent in Iraq and Afghanistan that went to favored corporations with no bid contracts? A prime example of this practice is the notorious Cheney affiliated company, Halliburton Made $39.5 Billion on Iraq War.

According to the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the level of corruption by defense contractors may be as high as $60 billion. Disciplined soldiers that would traditionally do many of the tasks are commissioned by private and publicly listed companies.

Even without the graft, the costs of paying for these services are higher than paying government employees or soldiers to do them because of the profit motive involved. No-bid contracting – when companies get to name their price with no competing bid – didn’t lower legitimate expenses.

However, this sum is merely chump change when compared to the video report that Rumsfeld Announces $2.3 Trillion Missing from Pentagon. It is one thing to provide contracts to buddy companies, but it quite a different and an outrageous matter to abandon even the appearance of accounting audits of public funds.

Even with this scandal conveniently absent from a much needed accountability the pattern of crony capitalism continues. The left leaning, Center for Public Integrity provides the following stats in Windfalls of war: Pentagon’s no-bid contracts triple in 10 years of war.

Noncompetitive, sole-source contracts are by no means unique to the Pentagon. Other agencies have been accused of giving short shrift to competition, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which awarded over half of its immediate post-Hurricane Katrina contracts without full competition, according to one congressional report. But based on total dollars, the Pentagon, according to publicly available data analyzed by iWatch News, lags behind all other major departments in competitive contracting. The Pentagon’s competition rate of about 61 percent places it will below other agencies. The State Department in 2010 competed almost 75 percent of its contract dollars, the Department of Homeland Security competed almost 77 percent, and the Energy Department competed 94 percent.

The NeoCon publication Newsmax in No-Bid Contracts Mark Obama Administration, cites recent figures below, as the Obama-friendly Huffington Press admits the same in No-Bid Contracts Jump 9 Percent Under Obama.

Federal agencies awarded $115.2 billion in no-bid contracts in fiscal 2012, an 8.9 percent increase from $105.8 billion in 2009, even as total contract spending decreased by 5 percent during the period.

Citing the absurdity of these abuses, USDA Gives No-Bid Contract to Obama-Connected Marketing Firm, dares expose the wife’s pet projects of Il Duce Obama.

According to (FOIA) documents, “the USDA awarded SS+K the “unauthorized commitment,” no-bid contract to produce the “Let’s Move” logo, slogan, and artwork for Michelle Obama’s campaign, as well as the creative design for the “Let’s Move” website, which right now features characters from the Muppets as well as photos of Michelle Obama dancing/exercising.

Also, the look of arrogant favoritism is seen when a First Lady’s College Classmate Linked to No-Bid ObamaCare Contract produced the latest failure of governmental competency.

A former Princeton classmate of First Lady Michelle Obama is a senior executive at CGI Federal, a company that received a no-bid government contract to set up the ObamaCare website, according to reports by the Daily Caller

Thomas Lifson notes in the essay, Unbelievable incompetence led to no-bid contract for healthcare.gov, a very important point. “Any company which screwed up a key product introduction this badly would fire its chief executive. It’s a shame the same remedy does not apply in the public sector.” The political class operates on a continuous need of acquiring an ever increasing level of cash flow. Elected politicians rely upon the donations (translate BRIBES) from their corporate or special interest patrons. Bureaucratic officials maintain and increase their power with expanding the role of their agencies that demand ever-bigger budgets.

There is absolutely no incentive to stop the no-bid gravy train as the embattled citizen taxpayers are fleeced with each new overrun contract. However, in an era of permanent budget deficits, monetizing the debt is far more attractive than actually balancing expenditures with real dollar taxes.

Bipartisan acquiescence to this fascist model for pillaging the national treasury is an incontrovertible fact of this continuation of abuses. Then again, the more accurate interpretation is that the entire system is based upon a dishonest culture of perpetual graft and self-enrichment.

Reciprocal preferential treatment is at the core of business dealing with government authorities. No bid contracts are guarantee centers of the funny money circus.

In the article, How to Make Billions Off Government Contracts, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) references the following.

Noncompetitive contracting, cost-reimbursement contracts, and time-and-materials and labor-hour (T&M/LH) contracts pose special risks of overspending.

Non-competitive contracts present a risk because there is not a direct market mechanism for setting the contract price. Cost-reimbursement contracts and T&M/LH contracts pose a risk because they provide no direct incentive to the contractor for cost control.

These systemic problems are even more pronounced with no bid contracts. The lack of comparative pricing is understood by honorable public servants. Nonetheless, the political prostitutes that cook up the sweetheart deals and administer the payoffs are components of the wicked corporatocracy/state alliance.

Benito Mussolini explained that “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”, he is really describing the current functions of today’s establishment.

No bid contracts mean that a particular company is preapproved to rip off the system. With their governmental partners, the fix is set for splitting the spoils. Welcome to the state/capitalism matrix in the 21th century.

Original article archived here

James Hall is a reformed, former political operative. This pundit’s formal instruction in History, Philosophy and Political Science served as training for activism, on the staff of several politicians and in many campaigns. A believer in authentic Public Service, independent business interests were pursued in the private sector. Speculation in markets, and international business investments, allowed for extensive travel and a world view for commerce. Hall is the publisher of BREAKING ALL THE RULES. Contact [email protected]