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Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

reuters.com

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Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#121

Post by whimsicalism »

itsoktocry wrote: post #57
NickC25 wrote: post #8

All fine and dandy until one realizes that the pentagon's budget is measured in the trillions, and this sort of deal probably doesn't even deal with mission critical stuff. That said, we do waste a ton of money on consultants, and the pentagon needs to trim its budget. Should also be noted that Pete Hegseth is a fucking moron, and some of these cuts probably hurt our national security readiness.

> we do waste a ton of money on consultants I bet the median skill of a Deloitte consultant is higher than that of the average government office worker.

You are absolutely right. As someone who has worked in government, the replies to you seem hopelessly optimistic about the average government worker.. it seems like many really cannot comprehend? the gulf in capability.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#122

Post by ceejayoz »

kcatskcolbdi wrote: post #104
mythz wrote: post #6

On the face of it cutting huge IT govt contracts sounds like a good choice to reduce waste, but with this administration I'm expecting any savings to be funneled to Grok/xAI/Elon.

Yeah can't wait until our Nation's Finest are having to use Grok Spectacles to identify enemy combatants.

Eh, that might work out.

https://www.theverge.com/news/617799/elon-musk-grok-ai-donal...

> Elon Musk’s OpenAI rival, xAI, says it’s investigating why its Grok AI chatbot suggested that both President Donald Trump and Musk deserve the death penalty. xAI has already patched the issue and Grok will no longer give suggestions for who it thinks should receive capital punishment.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#123

Post by whimsicalism »

mlinhares wrote: post #44
ibejoeb wrote: post #21

Kinda amusing that the general sentiment so far, in a forum filled with technology expertise, is that there is certainly waste in these budgets. But, when discussing the overall trend of cutting programs in other fields where the majority doesn't have that expertise, the conclusion is the opposite.

Because we shouldn't be cutting research, healthcare and social security if we want to have a future as a society.

well we need to find a way to make these programs sustainable then. frankly, medicare is extremely friggin expensive because it encourages overutilization - which raises costs a ton for everyone.

we simply cannot afford to be yeeting historically unheard of levels of money at the elderly without raising taxes significantly on the middle-class, that is the rub of our current fiscal situation.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#124

Post by spamizbad »

yuppii wrote: post #42
mythz wrote: post #6

On the face of it cutting huge IT govt contracts sounds like a good choice to reduce waste, but with this administration I'm expecting any savings to be funneled to Grok/xAI/Elon.

So you are comparing existing, actual waste with your "imaginary" waste that might or might not happen... Go easy on the kool aid.

We don't know if they're actually cutting waste here. DOGE has already had to do a massive climb-down from saving $1000B to saving $105B, but most of that $105B has not been shown to be true. Actual cuts may only amount to a few billion.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#125

Post by ceejayoz »

bena wrote: post #38
toolz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which isn't ideal, but easily better than the pentagon that has literally never passed a full audit since they started auditing them in 2018. I'm a huge fan of musk's company's, but I don't want my public tax dollars ever choosing winners/losers

The Pentagon will never pass an audit. Some of that money goes into things the auditors do not have clearance for.

They use auditors with clearance. I'd imagine certain programs require very specific auditors to supervise them, like how the FISA court works with specific vetted lawyers at times.

The more mundane problem is things like "drive that truck over there… drive another one back" often result in the exact location of an asset being unclear fairly frequently.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#126

Post by GVIrish »

cpursley wrote: post #67
yuppii wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are comparing existing, actual waste with your "imaginary" waste that might or might not happen... Go easy on the kool aid.

I don't totally trust this DOGE crew and think we should keep a hawks eye on them but the whole "they are cutting waste so they can funnel the money to themselves!" conspiracy theories making the rounds are pretty bizarre... And to what end, aren't many of these people already extremely wealthy? I sure hope I'm wrong.

Musk intervened at FAA to get a Verizon communications contract cancelled while quietly trying to get FAA to sign to a Starlink contract:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2025/03/13/elon-mu...

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#127

Post by ceejayoz »

spamizbad wrote: post #124
yuppii wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are comparing existing, actual waste with your "imaginary" waste that might or might not happen... Go easy on the kool aid.

We don't know if they're actually cutting waste here. DOGE has already had to do a massive climb-down from saving $1000B to saving $105B, but most of that $105B has not been shown to be true. Actual cuts may only amount to a few billion.

> Actual cuts may only amount to a few billion.

And that's assuming the cuts don't have any fiscally counterproductive knock-on effects. Which they certainly will.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#128

Post by rtkwe »

cpursley wrote: post #67
yuppii wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are comparing existing, actual waste with your "imaginary" waste that might or might not happen... Go easy on the kool aid.

I don't totally trust this DOGE crew and think we should keep a hawks eye on them but the whole "they are cutting waste so they can funnel the money to themselves!" conspiracy theories making the rounds are pretty bizarre... And to what end, aren't many of these people already extremely wealthy? I sure hope I'm wrong.

> And to what end, aren't many of these people already extremely wealthy?

When's the last time you heard a billionaire say, "I've got enough money I don't need to get any more" before they're very old and looking to burnish their image with charity work?! If they were the kind of person to be ok with more money than they could spend in 10 lifetimes they wouldn't be billionaires in the first place, at least not multibillionaires.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#129

Post by aantix »

callamdelaney wrote: post #64

Now the UK should swiftly follow suit in sacking these cowboys. The taxpayer is being charged extortionate rates in some cases for fresh graduates who know effectively nothing at all about what they talk about. At the same time, we should increase salary banding for technical roles to the market rate. We will get the experience we need for much, much less.

Salary banding doesn’t attract the talent you need. Maybe, good enough?

E.g. Who would contribute to open source, speak at conferences, write blog articles, go above and beyond to outwardly contribute, only to be grouped with others to make the same? Terrible deal.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#130

Post by ch4s3 »

dwater wrote: post #80
itsoktocry wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we do waste a ton of money on consultants I bet the median skill of a Deloitte consultant is higher than that of the average government office worker.

The trend for decades has been shrinking the public workforce and replacing them with contractors, because Republicans have said that the private sector is more efficient. So the average government office worker is not a tech, they are a contract officer. The government does not have these skills internally at the level necessary, if they want this work done they have to contract it out. And if these contracts get ca…

The size of the federal workforce has been remarkably stable for decades[1]. It hasn't dipped below 2.7 million since 1967 ad only recently cracked 3 million again.

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES9091000001

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