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| Home Front: Politix |
| Trump, Palantir, and the Battle to Clean Up a Huge Army Procurement Swamp |
| 2017-03-28 |
| [Fortune Magazine Excerpt] Trump, so far, has given no public hint of a position on the dispute. Lindsay Walters of the White House press office told me the President would not be available to discuss the case or his approach to defense contracts. In February, Trump included a $54 billion increase for the Pentagon, a 10% hike, in his budget proposal. Normally that would not be a good sign that a Commander-in-Chief is interested in being budget conscious. On the other hand, he has tweeted repeatedly about the cost of the F-35 and Air Force One and had his ostentatious meetings with the CEOs of the two companies producing them (Lockheed Martin and Boeing). What's more, he has promised that with a premier dealmaker at the helm, the government is going to be much smarter when it comes to writing checks. Whether Trump is serious and, if so, whether the Iron Triangle can ultimately beat him back remains to be seen. But with a judge having ruled in Palantir's favor, and with its boosters being so close to Trump, the Palantir-Army fight seems to be the most likely instance where Trump will keep that promise. He or Defense Secretary Mattis simply have to tell the Army not to appeal a losing case and to do what the Court of Claims ordered. In other words: Give Palantir a fair chance. The more important question is, What happens after that? Will Palantir's victory become, as Philippone says he hopes, the case that finally forces the government to buy superior products from private-sector technology companies rather than pay Beltway contractors to make products from scratch that rarely meet projected costs or work as planned? History suggests the odds are steep. In 2010, J. Ronald Fox, a Harvard Business School professor who has spent much of his career studying Pentagon procurement, wrote a book about taming the Pentagon's checkbook. "Since 1959, seventeen Defense Secretaries have made commitments to bring about effective and efficient management of the defense acquisition process," Fox concluded. "Indeed, each has taken specific steps to identify problems and initiate improvements. But each has left office before reform implementation has become institutionalized." alantir may prevail in this instance, but it will take a lot more than one defeat to break up the Iron Triangle. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #1 Good luck. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2017-03-28 10:37 |