bob7947

Vern posted the above a few weeks ago. As you can see from our poll of Wifcon users, this has spread to Wifcon.com. Of 23 votes cast in our unscientific poll to date, all 23 votes are from users who are 30 and above. Even more scary is the fact that about 44% of us are 60 years and above. It isn't as if there is no new blood here because I continue to add new members every day -- from the government and industry. Over the past few years, I have found less and less information to post on the daily Home Page. It hasn't happened overnight. Rather, it has happened over the years. I've been adding more and more sources to search for information that contracting individuals might find useful. Quite franly, the amount of information out there has declined from that in the past. It's as if no one cares about you. Last Friday, OMB released its plans for the Administration's management agenda for federal contracting. I consider it BALONEY. Actually, I have many more unkind thigs to say about it. You may say Where is it? as you search. I think it is objectives without stating the existence of a problem to correct

One of the current issues is that the contracting workforce is aging with only a small percent of young individuals in the workforce. Although there are only 18 votes in the current poll, it appears that Wifcon members may have aged over the years too with NO members in the youngest group. Please vote in the poll so we reach a larger number of members voting. Age of members may result in changes to the Wifcon site.

The population of the United States is 74% the size of the European Union. Additionally both the United States and European Union share many of the same government contractors. Considering that, some of our members may be interested in what is going on in the other side of our shared pond. Chapter 4: ROLE OF DIGITAL PLATFORM FOR GOVTECH AND PUBLIC PROCUREMENT specifically covers procurement so I point it out. Here is a link to The Digital Single Market and the Digitalisation of the Public Sector

In the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals there is a case: Raj J. Patel v. U. S., CBCA 7419, June 24, 2022 with a complaint for the above. You may figure it out.

Mine was just like this one "red" but this is 1969 and 1986. ASPM #1. 1969 ASPM 1986 I think I read the 1986 version the most, especially Chapter 8. I always liked this one under "Gamesmanship." "The Here It Is Friday Afternoon and You've Got to Catch the Plane Squeeze" OK, back to the topic.

Read it and weep. Department of Defense, Office of Inspector General—Legality of Service of Acting Inspector General

When you log-in today, how about clicking your age on this poll.

Another new article from Vernon J. Edwards entitled : OFPP: Dead Letters?

Commissioning of Virginia-Class Fast Attack Submarine Montana I was updating the Home Page of Wifcon.com this morning when I found this. I've never watched a commissioning of a ship before and I deleted all the political speeches before I started watching. We can see it was a beautiful day at Naval Station Norfolk and I enjoyed the formality of the actual commissioning and learned from it. I placed the post under Contracting Workforce to acknowledge the contracting workforces of Newport News Shipbuilding, its subcontractors and suppliers, and that of the Navy. The actual commissioning begins at about 40 mimutes into the ceremony and lasts about 30 minutes more. Of course, it you want to hear politicians talk, you can start from the beginning.

I thought about a number of simple ways to do it. So far, we have 4 responses -- out of 7,000 registered users.

I did something like that years ago. I offered $50 or $100 for doing something. Someone won and it took me forever to convince the winner that he was going to be getting the money. That was the last time I tried that.

Joel, the reason I kept it simple is because I'm hoping more than a handful of members submit a vote in in the next year.

In 2016, I asked the same question of you. After 130 votes over 5 years, our members showed a fairly even distribution in the age groups I listed. I hope we can get more votes than the first one. This poll will automatically close next year on 6/23/23. All you have to do is look at the poll and click one group. That's it. If you want to talk about any results, you can do that too. Only I have access to your display names and I haven't disclosed one in the 24 years of Wifcon.com's existence.

The Need to Reform the McNamara – O’Hara Service Contract Act by Ike Brannon, The Jack Kemp Foundation by Chad D. Cotti, University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh Please read: The Need to Reform the McNamara – O’Hara Service Contract Act

It wouldn't hurt if I did.

The writer of the article had the same problem as I did. The Semi-permanent Acting Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy (since 2008) is Lesley Anne Field. On my first try, I got the name wrong as did the author of the article. I added an "s" to her last name too. I bet she has spent more time in her OFPP roles than any confirmed Administrator. I also add that this forum has over 7,000 registrations (the last time I counted years ago) so I think we can do better than 130 votes.

I'm bumping this up in case you have not seen it.

Over the past several weeks, I have been updating this site. This past weekend I updated the Legislation Page for the 117th Congress, 2nd session (the current one). I will correct the heading to the page soon. It will be updated each weekend to present the most current contracting marvels of the U. S. Congreess. Also, the Public Laws page was updated this weekend. I now notice the the LII had left it with some dead links at the top which I will correct. Earlier, I updated the Regulations page and the massive FAR Research Page. I continue to update Wifcon.com pages. My efforts were spurred on by H-2-H and then by Michael Caine in the movie Interstellar where he quoted lines from Dylan Thomas. I'm 73 now and I took it to heart. My goal is to update the entire site, then teach myself a new software suite, and finally turn the non-discussion part of the site into something current. As Dylan Thomas wrote Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night

H. R. 8007: Introduced on 6/9/22 to prevent price gouging at the Department of Defense. H. R. 7694: Introduced on 5/10/22 to modify the requirements relating to the evaluation of the subcontracting plans of certain offerors.

I only add the quote about Gene Dodaro to show that Actings can effectively manage organizations. He's been running GAO for 12 years now. I was relieved to see that an insider was finally made the Comptroller General. Someone that knew the agency, someone that could hit the ground running, someone that could get the job done. That's enough about Gene, this entry is about the Office of Federal Procurement Policy and its next Administrator. I'm feeling a little nasty this morning because its raining here and my dogs and I already got soaked. I've been grumbling to myself for the past week about the previous nominee for Administrator, his prepared opening statement before the Senate Committee and the failure to nominate an obvious choice for Administrator. First things first-that awful prepared opening statement. Prepared Statement before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Budget. Please read it--it's only 1 1/2 pages. Did he have any plans as Administrator? (I've deleted all the nasty questions I would have asked the withdrawn nominee if I were a Senator.) Now here's Lesley Anne Field and here is a biography from a University Alumni Association meeting from 2015. Let's look at a couple highlights: the Acting Administrator periodically since September 2008, and a contracting officer and procurement policy analyst. You can read about her educational qualifications, some of what she has done at OFPP, and listen to her speaking in the recording for the University event. It's time the President removes the Acting word from her title and nominates her as Administrator--period.

We are blessed with so much information at our fingertips now. As President Eisenhower read his address, I noticed him looking at something to his right. I wondered if he was using a Teleprompter. Here is the answer from wikipedia.org - "On January 4, 1954, Dwight Eisenhower was the first President to use a teleprompter for a State of the Union address. Jess Oppenheimer, who created I Love Lucy and served for its first five years as its producer and head writer, developed the first "in-the-lens" prompter and was awarded U.S. patents for its creation." So, he may have been using a Teleprompter. Then I began wondering if President Eisenhower added his own personal notes and changes to his transcript. Was there something he felt was important enough to change? We have that too. President Eisenhower's Annotated Farewell Address

This morning, I was introducing someone to President Dwight D. Eisenhower's warning about the "Military Industrial Complex." The warning was given on January 17, 1961 in President Eisenhower's farewell address to the nation. The quote above was also from the address and deals with research. I've never listened to the address before today. That was my mistake. The address lasts about 16 minutes and it is important.

I looked last night in the e-Cfr and the updates were not made there either. Then again, look at the OFPP site and some of the memos, letters, etc., haven't been updated for 20 years or so.

RETREATING FROM REFORM: “We Have Met The Enemy, And He Is Us!” by Vernon J. Edwards

I've read some comments on the UK's proposed procurement legislation and, to some extent, the comments reminded me of our 1984. Remember, the UK is starting over after they left the EU. Here are some comments from the UK Anti-Corruption Coalition. You will see references to the "Green Paper."