Economics of Greed 004: The Curse of Government Contractors

The use of Contractors by US government entities at all levels, federal, state, and municipal, really kicked into high gear in the 80s during the Reagan administration. Since then, all the contractors that have been used and abused by this system have been racing to the bottom of the bidding wars, making a ton of money for themselves while undercutting each other at the expense of their employees or sub-contractors, all while pensioned government jobs were cut over and over, one of the most serious problems of the modern era.

As a very personal example, nearly twenty years ago when I started working for the Municipal Golf Association of San Antonio, basically a contractor run by the City of San Antonio, I learned that all the city golf course employees had only a certain amount of time to find jobs in other departments into which they could transfer, or they could work for MGASA, but in that organization there were no benefits, and not even the accrual of PTO that I can remember. I had to take a leave of absence when I got into a serious motorcycle wreck in 2009, and I was back in exactly eight weeks because I couldn't afford to be gone longer, not because I miraculously healed well and quickly.

So that's it. It's literally not complicated. I know a lot of people's livelihoods depend on government contracts nowadays, including the creation of contract and proposal consultants, but those people are probably also stressed about the race to the bidding bottom and don't pay their employees what they're worth either. It's a sad state of affairs, and this is just one example of why reform and oversight are necessary. Until greed is eliminated, things like this will just be the norm, and gracious, progressive business owners are the underdog outliers.