These are the kinds of stories that should be brought up when people tell you that they want the government to run all these Socialist ideas from the Democrats:
This time around, the Census Bureau wanted to do things differently, ditching paper for handheld computers that Census workers could use to collect and transmit data from those who don’t fill out the forms sent through the mail.
It wasn’t to be. Despite two years of development and a $600 million budget, the Census Bureau and Commerce Department recently decided that the $600 handhelds weren’t up to the job…In the field, they proved to be slow and unreliable. The Bush Administration’s official explanation is that the Census Bureau didn’t get its requirements straight with the contractor, Florida-based Harris Corp. No doubt that’s true…Even so, we doubt that “slow and unreliable” were part of the original specs in March 2006.
The article goes on to quote Tom Coburn who says they could of just brought Blackberries or IPhones, which would do the same damn thing for a much cheaper price. But no……..1.3 billion down the drain from big government.
So lets add a whole new entitlement department to the government and let big daddy take care of your medical needs.
Nothing could go wrong there…..
See author page
It’s one of the problems with government contracts. No bid contracts are either discouraged or banned even though they may produce a better product. Lobbist complaints when they don’t get theri way don’t help either.
the libs always think they can do it better, they can take care of everything. wow, they are dumb. i just love the waste of my tax dollars.
I want to correct Shakepeare’s
“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers”
to
“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the bureaucrats”
Then get around to the lawyers…….
But lawyers are just baby bureaucrats. We can club them before they grow up, kinda like baby seals. (just kidding about the seal part)
Ah yes… and I soooo can’t wait for them to place our medical into the hands of gov’t…. NOT!
Requirement’s definitions and “mission creep” are two of the biggest killers in any system. We run into the same things in the Army.
A requirement comes out for an item to do X. Contractors scramble to come up with said item only to have the requirements changed, added onto, or scrapped for something totally different. Now, the engineering and R&D money sunk by the contractor’s rolls into the changed requirement’s engineering and R&D, expanding the cost of the item.
In addtion, the item now needs to do X,Y,Z AND be backwards compatable AND expandable AND easy to upgrade AND easy to use AND easy to maintain. Oh, and it is still expected to be inexpensive or the whole program will be cut. This gets even worse with software requirments. I forget what the cost is for creating and then changing lines of code, but it is high.
After all of that, the government will want full technical data packages so that if the contractor (who has sunk lots of money into getting the contract) goes out of business, or some other contractor can do it cheaper (as they will have little sunk costs) after the contract expiration date, the government will re-bid the system and the new contractor can make the item.
That is just the tip of the iceberg in dealing with government aquisitions. No wonder why many of these companies no longer compete, go out of business, or demand the government foot the bill on the R&D and factory tooling.
There is a obscenity laced tyrade from Monty Python which I will paraphrase that reflects government procurement and requirements generation:
“We want this and that. We demand a share in that, and most of that. Some of this, and all of that. Less of that and more of this and plenty of this. And another thing. We want it now. I want it yesterday, and I want more tomorrow. And the demands will all be changed then so stay awake.”
I hope to God when McCain becomes President he get’s rid of all these nutty, wastefull, programs we are paying for.
Have we ever found out yet what the mating habit’s are of the Porcupine Carabou?
And do we really give a rat’s ass?
I know you will all hate me for saying it but if you hate incompetent overspending Government then you must agree with me that Bush is the worst president in decades.
W is the posterboy for incompetence and he did not veto a spending bill for six YEARS! You complain about Carabou stuff (and rightfully so) but do not complain about bridges to nowhere when bridges that regular commuters use daily are falling into rivers beneath them.
Thank goodness for John McCain. May he live for another (at least) nine years.
i will give you a hint MariesTwoCents and CentFla… Grampy McCain is NOT going to be the next President!!!
A little off comment but the election process is the pits.
Now America knows, or at least I know now, that Limbaugh’s operation chaos has been going on for about twenty years. Only many Democrats like me are starting to understand the real operation of caucus and non-caucus Primary elections. All of sudden I realize how much the Republican electorate has been a huge influence in the decisions of who the Democratic candidates are. In this election, a huge influence on the numbers Obama has received. From the Neo-Con’s and the real Conservatives that don’t want Hillary, and the Limbaugh-cans that don’t want Hillary either.
It’s incredible to believe that those Red States that have never voted for Democrat in forty years are going to vote for a Democrat especially a Black candidate like Obama.
From my view, it is hard to understand why the Democrats let Republican core voters to simply be able to raise their hand and declare themselves an Independent and vote in the Democratic part of the election. That is a screwed up rule that definitely needs to be changed. Especially when you have idiots on Mainstream Media 24X7 at a purposeful rant to distort and create bias to shape the election. They are CNN, MSNBC, and Fox news face it they all are bending the rules to free speech, treachery, sedition, and a mockery of the Constitution and just fair play. I would say 98% of the analysis that are made by first line Journalist are personal reflections and built in bias rather than real issue debatable ideals. All done without any ability for the real candidates to be part of these analysis especially talk radio that has only one way conversations that are filled with hate and bias.
Here, it does not work the other way. You can not be a Democrat and raise your hand to declare to be an Independent and vote in the Republican portion of the Primary. So, here we a huge imbalance of voter participation and mix that is so lopsided it is pitiful to determine the results. And America calls this a free election. So, but it is not. This election stuff driven by Mainstream Media is so corrupt it is way past pitiful, it is a disgrace to America, and Humanity
We have never had a two party system. This is a joke.
It’s obvious the Constitution has been breached many times but no one has never been prosecuted.
Charlie, Charlie, Charlie
Little-Known But Exploited Loophole Allows Politicians To Drive, Maintain Expensive Cars, SUVs On Taxpayer Money
Rep. Charles Rangel – (D- NY): ‘My Constituents Appreciate It’
http://wcbstv.com/seenon/car.lease.us.2.713776.html
(Another one. he’s going to be 78. Not too old to be bringing home the bacon though)