Here’s A Stunning List Of Delays And
Waste By Defense Contractors Who Are Meeting
With Hegseth Friday

Pure fraud and theft, to the tune of hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars. No different than the kickbacks the corrupt public sector union leaders send to fund the corrupt politicians who fund their lavish union contracts. Disgusting.

Suffered?

As a former (retired) aerospace company program manager involved with DoD contracts, my experience has been: (1) USG focus on lowest cost proposals for competitive contracts, resulting in low-ball bidding (cost/schedule/risk) by contractors in order to win contracts (2) Inexperienced/incompetent USG proposal evaluators. Aren’t capable of competently understanding and evaluating proposals, esp. in program risk. (3) Insufficient evaluation of technical risk, esp. regarding technical complexity of systems, level of maturity of advanced technologies, and, an area often overlooked, capabilities of subtler suppliers.

(4) The beautiful St Bernard puppy that grows to fill your garage and needs to be fed (e.g.: F35)

Not a problem Biden's Secretary of Defense, who left a job at Raytheon to assume the position, was concerned about.

Okay, NOW we're getting somewhere......

I would add #3/#4: (5) Government clients having amnesia about their legacy programs..."Oops, forgot about that one and that one. Didn't know about those ones. They'll not delay the timeline, will they?" (6) Court actions by the losing bidders. (7) Congresscritters holding hearings because the "wrong" bidders won.

Government contractor SAIC once entertained the idea of bidding on projects in the private sector. Their prices were so far out of line they could not compete.

Up to now, it has just been a game. Cost overruns are expected. Delays are expected. Contractors get their money. All o fit.

I wish him luck, but the only man who ever beat the Government Contactors was Harry S, Truman, and that is what is needed, another Truman.

What's up with them? Deliberately dragging their feet? They can run but they can't hide.

The Navy does not need "Stealth Aircraft," like the F-35, which launch from very un-stealthy "surface ships"! However, for our Pentagon "Brass-Monkeys," it's all about the "sexy factor," and the "me too" drive amongst them. If the USAF gets a shiny new single-engine toy then the Navy must have one too. Making an aircraft for the USAF is an entirely different beast from creating one of the Navy, who require TWO engines and "tail-hook ruggedization," but with the same performance and range as the USAF aircraft get. "Physics" takes a backseat during Pentagon/Contractor negotiations. Legendary aircraft designer and head of the Lockheed "Skunk Works," Kelly Johnson, whose aviation triumphs began with the Lockheed "Constellation" airliner and ended with the greatest 20th Century aviation achievement, the SR-71 "Blackbird," with the P-38, P-80, F-104, U-2, plus a dozen more in between, was also the "god-father of modern Program Management" and was always able to bring his projects in ahead of schedule, and with money to spare. His "Fourteen Rules of Program Management" were studied for decades by corporations wishing to glean from his genius the secrets of becoming a successful military contractor. His Fifteenth Rule was un-written, though based on his own real experiences, and went like this; 15. 'Starve before doing business with the damned Navy.'

I worked high cost contracts for the Air Force for 33 years. I can say without doubt, from direct experience that many contractors play games by claiming required actions are "Out of Scope" so they want more money to do what was already in the contract. I made many problems for contractors that called that BS. I would point out to them exactly what page/paragraph the required actions were, then asked them, Are you going to perform as per the contract or do I need to recommend we cancel this contract in full, at the Government's Convenience (Legal)? Of course they changed their tune immediately. Once I had them on the Ropes (boxing term), I would pummel them so they knew I was not playing games like they were. Of about 40 contracts I only had to fire one contractor. Every deliverable document they provided was below sub standard, and their Program Manager showed up very drunk to our meeting. It was a SchiffT Show start to end when I called them out. Amazingly after we fired them, a few months later they came to our Headquarters and wanted a meeting with General Officers to try to get another contract. Oddly enough the General in Charge asked me to show up exactly 5 minutes late to the meeting and sit to his right. Once the Contractor lead saw me he freaked, all of a sudden they had an emergency to take care of and they all left. Once they left everyone in the room started asking what happened, the General told me to explain. It was glorious. I went through the whole story and everyone was amazed, as few Contract managers would actually cancel contracts. Lucky for us, the Contractor had a sub-contractor we had worked with before and we awarded them the contract. They were in the meeting when everything went to hades and knew I was NOT messing around. The work was all done per the contract and the new contractor performed all tasks above and beyond. They became one of our GO-TO companies after that. Every time I see the games played by contractors today, since I retired, I feel like someone in the government is either on the take or they are not qualified to do the job. I also had issues with Government Employees, Senators etc. meddled in many contracts so I had to deal with that crooked crapola as well!

In many cases during the elapsed time between the Request For Proposal and Contract Award the threat or need has changed .Now the Pentagon wants the platform adapted to address a new requirement requiring design and engineering changes. It can take years for a contract to be let and most require compelition adding costs to the bidders. The acquisition process is too burdomsome.. And, every major defense contractor ensures design, manufacturing and support facilities as well as subcontractors are in as many States (Senate) and Congressional districts as possible.