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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

#271

Post by bumby »

whimsicalism wrote: post #255
bumby wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A counter point: Salary should be decent, but I’m not wholly convinced it needs to be at “market rate.” By having reasonable rates but below “market” value, you are likely creating a selection bias for people who are in it for the mission more than they are in it for the money. I think that’s a good thing. It’s like the idea that politicians should be allowed to trade stocks or else you won’t get the “best” talent. I…

we should also start cutting doctor pay to make sure we get people who are in it to help others.

Do you think the best doctors are the ones who go into the most lucrative paths, like cosmetic surgery in Beverly Hills? You're deliberately strawmanning. The equivalent statement on the other side would be: We should 10x doctor pay so we only get those people who are in it for the money. That's a disingenuous stance as well. Let's not pretend that "slightly below market rate" for specialized fields leaves people in the poorhouse.

My original point was about achieving a balance to avoid hiring mercenaries. I think that is important in domains where ethics matter and ultimately leads to better long-term outcomes. When people defend the pay aspects being the best motivation, they are quietly telling us about their own (anti-social) value system.

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

#272

Post by umvi »

tw04 wrote: post #229
heisenbit wrote: post #217

Consultants are misused if employed on a constant basis instead of employing enough senior staff directly. There are well known drivers on both sides that tend to promote such an unhealthy setup. What is concerning at the US government is not cutting consulting but at the same time cutting staff and on top creating a hostile environment for senior staff. This is unprecedented and is not something one would do in the…

The ONLY time this occurs in the private sector is when corporate raiders are trying to extract every last penny from a business they plan on killing. Unsurprisingly this follows directly with project 2025s goal of dismantling the federal government and privatizing what departments aren’t filled with party loyalists at the expense of the average US citizen.

Maybe the federal government needs a reset/dismantling/pruning/whatever you want to call it. With any "normal" president (including Kamala Harris), the federal government would likely be expanding spending and gov't programs right now even though the debt is so huge that interest payments on the debt now eclipse the defense budget, which itself exceeds the next 9 defense budgets in the world combined.

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

#273

Post by Cyph0n »

whimsicalism wrote: post #255
bumby wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A counter point: Salary should be decent, but I’m not wholly convinced it needs to be at “market rate.” By having reasonable rates but below “market” value, you are likely creating a selection bias for people who are in it for the mission more than they are in it for the money. I think that’s a good thing. It’s like the idea that politicians should be allowed to trade stocks or else you won’t get the “best” talent. I…

we should also start cutting doctor pay to make sure we get people who are in it to help others.

Pediatric medicine in a nutshell.

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

#274

Post by bgilroy26 »

ibejoeb wrote: post #13
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.

The '24 budget was $842 billion.

The term of the contracts were longer than 1 year

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

#275

Post by dleeftink »

wonderwonder wrote: post #260
QuantumGood wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

96 of 301 projects complete, 58 in progress • https://www.project2025.observer/

Whether you support it or not, for government, that's really some incredible efficiency. almost 1/3 complete in 100 days

The most efficient system is the one that is none. But it also ceases to be a system.

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

#276

Post by johnbellone »

This is where I would expect there to be a lot of waste in government budgets. Unfortunately, there are very little incentives for the work coming out of these types of contracts to build process/technology to automate themselves out of billions of dollars. We are stuck between limitations of government civilian workforce (pay/politics) and overpaying companies for work that generally can be a lot cheaper with a career employee.

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

#277

Post by evidencetamper »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #259
bumby wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A counter point: Salary should be decent, but I’m not wholly convinced it needs to be at “market rate.” By having reasonable rates but below “market” value, you are likely creating a selection bias for people who are in it for the mission more than they are in it for the money. I think that’s a good thing. It’s like the idea that politicians should be allowed to trade stocks or else you won’t get the “best” talent. I…

Inevitably, that way of setting up an organization leads to one of two end-games: 1-A wealthy ruling class who can afford and feels entitled to be the government. See: the British Empire. 2-A wealthy ruling class who can afford to postpone profits while they accumulate power, to eventually trade that power for profit through grift. See: western democracy. Pay people as well as possible for their work and ruthlessly g…

Singapore has been independent since 1959, while the USA got its own in 1776, and Britain has been around for more than a thousand years.

I don't think we can, yet, call Singapore a lastingly successful system, considering most of the time since its independence has been under a father or his son.

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

#278

Post by tomrod »

umvi wrote: post #272
tw04 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ONLY time this occurs in the private sector is when corporate raiders are trying to extract every last penny from a business they plan on killing. Unsurprisingly this follows directly with project 2025s goal of dismantling the federal government and privatizing what departments aren’t filled with party loyalists at the expense of the average US citizen.

Maybe the federal government needs a reset/dismantling/pruning/whatever you want to call it. With any "normal" president (including Kamala Harris), the federal government would likely be expanding spending and gov't programs right now even though the debt is so huge that interest payments on the debt now eclipse the defense budget, which itself exceeds the next 9 defense budgets in the world combined.

Current budget is set to expand deficit spending due to tax cuts and certain spending increases, in spite of project cuts to social safety nets and entitlements.

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

#279

Post by leguminous »

heisenbit wrote: post #217

Consultants are misused if employed on a constant basis instead of employing enough senior staff directly. There are well known drivers on both sides that tend to promote such an unhealthy setup. What is concerning at the US government is not cutting consulting but at the same time cutting staff and on top creating a hostile environment for senior staff. This is unprecedented and is not something one would do in the…

Part of the reason the US government needs to use consultants is because they can't actually pay enough to hire senior developers directly due to the constraints imposed by the GS pay scales. Often times the top levels of the pay scale aren't even available because there is some rule about how people can't be paid more than someone else. So instead they pay for consultants and all of their overhead.

(Of course there are more reasons as well, but this is a popular one that some of my friends in government agencies complain about.)

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

#280

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

umvi wrote: post #272
tw04 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ONLY time this occurs in the private sector is when corporate raiders are trying to extract every last penny from a business they plan on killing. Unsurprisingly this follows directly with project 2025s goal of dismantling the federal government and privatizing what departments aren’t filled with party loyalists at the expense of the average US citizen.

Maybe the federal government needs a reset/dismantling/pruning/whatever you want to call it. With any "normal" president (including Kamala Harris), the federal government would likely be expanding spending and gov't programs right now even though the debt is so huge that interest payments on the debt now eclipse the defense budget, which itself exceeds the next 9 defense budgets in the world combined.

> With any "normal" president (including Kamala Harris), the federal government would likely be expanding spending and gov't programs right now

Perhaps, and in such a case, the american economy would not be cratering like it has been lately, and americans would be suffering less, and america would be stronger on the international stage. In fact, all things considered, more spending would have been better for america than the current state of things.

> the debt is so huge that interest payments on the debt now eclipse the defense budget

There's always taxing the rich, but the plan by the american ruling elites in the republican party currently seems to be to increase the debt sky-high via tax cuts for rich americans, only partially paid for via increased taxes on non-rich americans, with the rest piled onto the american debt burden.

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