Competition, Washington Style

Defense Secretary Robert Gates continued on Thursday the high visibility campaign he started in a speech earlier this month to rein in military spending and argue for a more effective definition of competition in Defense contracts.

At a press briefing on Thursday at the Pentagon with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen, Gates strongly re-iterated his opposition to $485 million in funding for an alternative engine for the F-35 fighter included in the fiscal 2011 Defense Authorization Bill passed by the House Armed Services Committee.

Pratt & Whitney won the F-35 engine competition, and Gates has a hard time comprehending why Congress now wants to back an alternative from a GE/Rolls Royce team. "As I've said before, only in Washington does a proposal where everybody wins get considered a competition, where everybody is guaranteed a piece of the action at the end," he said.

Gates added, "Yeah, we're in favor of competition. But my idea of competition is winner takes all, and we don't have that kind of a situation here."

Evidently he has not looked lately the state of competition for omnibus information technology contracts, where it seems everyone who bids also wins -- especially after whiny losers protest.

The most famous of the "everyone wins" IT contracts is the Army's fabled $20 billion Information Technology Enterprise Solutions-2 pact, circa 2005. After five losers protested, the Army ended up awarding the deal to 16 companies, including all five of the protestors.

Following Gates lead, maybe the Army will only award its next omnibus IT contract to 10 companies. That could be taken as a sign of progress.