Of Campaign Promises and No-Bid Contracts

With the recent passage of President Obama's first anniversary in office, journalists, bloggers, and commentators have been sizing up the administration's accomplishments and failures thus far. In that spirit, Fox News, in an article [2] examining a contract recently awarded under the Obama administration, concluded that the president has failed to keep his campaign promise of ending no-bid "sweetheart deals" in government contracting. To say that this verdict – which manipulated [3] OMB Watch data – is misleading and a bit premature is an understatement.

The contract in question is a $24 million award for "rule of law stabilization services" in Afghanistan. Fox News tells us that this contract warrants scrutiny because the recipient company is "owned by a Democratic campaign contributor," and the contracting agency, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), awarded it without competition, which, according to Fox, proves that the president broke his campaign promise.

To start, let's separate the two issues that Fox News has conveniently tangled together here. The first issue is the "controversial" nature of the contract; that it is somehow a "sweetheart deal." Unless I missed something in the article, Fox has zero evidence that USAID awarded the contract based on the party affiliation or campaign contribution history of the top executive of the winning company. Indeed, a quick check of USASpending.gov [4] reveals that the government has been contracting with the company for millions of dollars each year since 2002, not exactly a period of Democratic dominion in the executive branch.

Add to all this the fact that USAID made the award without competition because it was renewing a previous contract that the company had with the agency – a completely legitimate reason – and the controversy quickly falls away.

The second issue, which parts of the blogosphere have begun to regurgitate [5], is the president's campaign promise. President Obama never promised to end the use of no-bid contracts, he promised to end the abuse of them. Cynics might dismiss this distinction, but it's an important one that Fox News glosses over. No contracting analyst would honestly argue that the government could get rid of no-bid contracts; they perform an essential role in the government's repertoire of contracting vehicles. The president even said [6] as much last March when he laid out his proposal to reform government contracting.

While I applaud Fox News for attempting to hold President Obama accountable and appreciate their use of the information we provide the public, they may want to do a little more research next time and make a better effort at getting their facts straight. And as far as campaign promises go, I would caution against concluding that the president has failed to end the abuse of no-bid contracts based on the non-competed renewal of a $24 million USAID award one year into his presidency.

Image by Flickr user Barack Obama [7] used under a Creative Commons license.