[missed_out]

This is what I observed at McClellan AFB during my time there. No matter how hard I fought to do the work as a government engineer, management continuously turned the work over to contractors. As to why? I was taken aside and given the most ridiculous reason. If the project fails or overruns, the manager just gets more money to give to the contractor. Being screwed by the contractor was acceptable. But if done organically and there were problems, the manager gets a ton of grief. But this is the government, what terrible fate will come down on the manager? I also noticed that a lot of these managers retired from government service ended up working for the contractors, and the process recycles itself. This came back to bite McClellan AFB in the arse later. Come BRAC time, the contractors made it an easy choice to close the base by taking the work back their sites at a much reduced cost.