[moron4hire]

I think this is really only true for big-ticket military contracts, which are designed to siphon money from the tax payers into the wallets of specific crony contracting firms in the first place.

If you're a small startup, there are dozens of ways to get into government contracting. Start looking at your city level. My home town even has an open-access procurement website where I can sign up, register my credentials, fill out my tax paperwork in advance, and configure email alerts for different keywords on procurement contracts that they post. If I had 5 employees--instead of my company being just a loose conglomeration of three consultants working on three completely different projects but sharing our billing--then I'd be able to even bid on some of these GIS software contracts.

I know my state has a similar site, I just haven't gone through it yet. I'm pretty sure federal has such a system that a number of the different bureaus use.