Thomas Frank wrote an excellent column in the Wall Street Journal before Thanksgiving that is a great overview of the problems of a government contracting system run amok. The entire column is worth reading, but here's a key passage:

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a new report on Friday on the Bush administration's competitive sourcing initiative, which allows the federal government to hold public-private competitions for the right to deliver commercial services for the government (things like janitorial services or food preparation or maintenance). If a private sector bid can show savings of $10 million or more or 10 percent of the cost of providing those services in-house, they win the competition. /p>

Argh! More bad news about the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), the watchdog at the Department of Defense that is supposed to watch out for waste and fraud within the agency's enormous contracting apparatus. DCAA was in the news a lot this summer (see here, here, here, and here) after information surfaced showing the DoD spends too little on contract oversight and interferes with current auditors to restrict the length and scope of investigations. It doesn't look like things have improved much since then.