[bovermyer]

You lost me at faxes.

In seriousness, though, I don't think it's fair to downplay the complexity of government procurement. Having worked as a subcontractor of a subcontractor of a contractor for a U.S.G.S. program, I've had some exposure to that world. It's not pretty, and much of the complexity is needless.

Some of it is genuinely important, like accessibility and privacy requirements. The vast majority, though, seems mostly to be the product of two centuries worth of increasing bureaucracy.

This is not a problem that can't be solved, though. I don't think the gentleman at the end of the article is correct in his assertion that this way of doing things "is timeless." We just have to figure out how to pare down bureaucracy a little bit at a time.

[mgkimsal]

This is an area that I'm doing a bit of work in right now, and there does seem to be a certain level of difference between US federal govt, state govts, and local municipalities. It's not that local govts are necessarily more lax, and the ones I'm talking to still have regulations to follow, but they're sometimes seem to be a bit easier to deal with.