[hypeatei]

> There's more red tape than ever before.

It's not the DoD, but this is happening out in the open at DHS where the secretary is requiring her personal sign-off on any purchase over $100k[0] when the previous limit was $25M.

  Deployments of critical resources, such as tactical and specialized search and rescue teams, were delayed as a result of a budget restriction requiring Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem to approve every purchase, contract and grant over $100,000[1]

0: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/acquisition-policy/2025/06/ab...

1: https://archive.is/Ky7d5

[MisterTea]

> It's not the DoD, but this is happening out in the open at DHS where the secretary is requiring her personal sign-off on any purchase over $100k[0] when the previous limit was $25M.

This is EXACTLY what the PE firm did to my company after acquisition to "cut costs" and make numbers go up. I used to be able to sign off on my own purchase reqs up to $2000. That allowed me to easily acquire just about anything I needed and get my work done. Now I have to have EVERYTHING signed off on by upper management. As If I was an irresponsible spendthrift throwing money away on spare parts we actually needed. It's useless performative micromanagement by incompetent people. It's honestly insulting.

[mothballed]

Government doesn't turn a profit, so the only way to get more money and prestige in the government is to have a higher headcount under you and more power. A good way to get more power is to add a bunch of red tape and also to slow down all the processes so you need more people and thus require a higher headcount which makes your management more prestigious.

All the incentives line up that this will only get worse.