You can’t make this stuff up. This is the government that’s saving jobs and wants to provide health care?
KALISPELL – Across the nation, local firms can expect to lose billions of economic stimulus dollars to large multinational corporations, thanks to a government contracting scheme that puts paperwork speed ahead of community recovery.
In Montana, that means qualified building firms are out of the loop, while many millions in federal construction funding will go to a California company that recently earned a stern rebuke for its failures in Iraq – a war-profits scandal that cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
Here’s a little about IDIQ…
That’s because the government is using a controversial contracting method that speeds bidding but also tilts the playing field in favor of mega-companies. It’s called IDIQ contracting, which is shorthand for “indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity,” and it’s essentially an all-you-can-eat money buffet for big corporations.
An IDIQ is a broad and open-ended agreement, in which the government essentially creates a sort of long-term, all-purpose contract under which specific tasks can later be defined. The scheme moves projects quickly, which is a priority for economic stimulus jobs, but critics argue it’s anticompetitive, because only a handful of large firms can afford to engage on such undefined and unrestricted terms.
Belly up to the trough.
Brings new meaning to “anything’s better than what we have”!
