[icedchai]

Yep. I’ve worked on some federal contracts and all the waste is in private contractors, not the government itself. There are structural issues with subcontractors many layers deep, each middleman taking a cut for doing little to nothing. It’s sick.

[CobrastanJorji]

Heck, even before they do anything, there is a sizable industry (with just a few players) focused entirely on the incredibly byzantine (but originally well meaning) process of bidding for government contracts (and also the politicking of acquiring no-bid contracts).

[parineum]

And who is responsible for making sure federal contracts don't go to wasteful contractors?

[sarchertech]

Yeah but that’s a process issue that would require deep familiarity and probably acts of Congress to fix. That’s not something a few 25 year olds with no relevant experience can come in and fix in 100 days.

[parineum]

Sure but this whole thread reads like it's absolving the government giving these contracts and blaming private companies.

It's the frog and the scorpion fable.

[Sabinus]

To me this whole thread reads people trying to apologise for DOGE, especially by making appeals like 'government has corruption and waste and that is bad so DOGE was good'.

[lern_too_spel]

It's why smart government created USDS, to clean up the mess left by contractors who set up the original healthcare.gov by having competent people work directly for the federal government. USDS was replaced with the incompetent DOGE (now US DOGE Service) and then completely shut down due to the new organization's incompetence.