COMMENTARY: The chainsaw approach to cutting government promises more damage than results
Gettyimages.com/Capelle.r
By
Nick Wakeman
The new GovCon oversight strategy seems to go like this: Make big, broad accusations of wrongdoing and then watch your targets squirm.
Hundreds of small businesses have seen contracts cancelled in recent weeks as the Trump administration pushes its agenda forward, but the largest of the large businesses in the market are not being spared either.
The latest example is the General Services Administration’s call to cut consulting contracts held by 10 of the biggest government contracting firms in the market.
“Consulting” has become a dirty word for the Trump administration alongside foreign aid, DEI and sustainability.
The GSA memo sent Wednesday talks about a review process, but the intent is clear: Contracts need to be eliminated.
“Based on available procurement data, we have identified that the 10 highest paid consulting firms …are set to receive over $65 billion in 2025 and future years. This needs to, and must, change,” acting administrator Stephen Ehikian wrote with that last sentence in bold letters.
Further emphasizing that the intent is to cut the contracts is a paragraph where he criticizes an earlier review of these contracts.
“Some contracts with these firms were previously reviewed by your agency, however, not enough action has been taken,” Ehikian wrote.
In other words, you were supposed to cancel these contracts.
The memo names companies that are pillars in the GovCon market, listed here with their 2024 Washington Technology Top 100 ranks:
- Leidos (No. 1)
- Booz Allen Hamilton (No. 4)
- General Dynamics IT (No. 6)
- Accenture Federal Services (No. 9)
- Science Applications International Corp. (No. 12)
- Deloitte (No. 14)
- HII Mission Technologies Corp. (No. 23)
- IBM Corp. (No. 28)
- Guidehouse (No. 36)
- CGI Federal (No. 35)
Given their size and resources, these companies will get little sympathy from the plethora of small businesses that have lost contracts – especially those serving at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Many of the cancellations seem counterintuitive. Some of the contracts involve national security missions, monitoring the performance of government operations, and modernization and efficiency. All priorities of the Trump administration.
The situation is made worse by the lack of transparency into the reasoning behind what the Department of Government Efficiency and the Trump administration are deciding.
In the case of the GSA consulting contracts, two big questions for me involve what definition of consulting the Trump administration using and where does the $65 billion number come from?
Given the mistakes and mischaracterizations present on the DOGE Wall of Receipts, I’m very skeptical of the $65 billion number. I can hear Mrs. Lancaster, my high school algebra teacher, admonishing me to show my work.
The fact of the matter is that these companies do very little pure consulting work.
Accenture, Booz Allen, CGI, Deloitte and Guidehouse certainly have roots in consulting. But over the last 20 years, they have become more technology-oriented companies that use their consulting skills to understand the customers’ challenges and then apply the tech.
GDIT, Leidos, SAIC, HII and IBM have roots in technology and technical services. But they have also grown their consulting services to augment the tech work.
The companies have been moving either from consulting into technology or technology into consulting.
In looking at procurement data, it is impossible to separate consulting work from technology work. There is no product and service code, or PSC, for pure consulting. PSC codes are how agencies their spending.
The codes are just a guide and give a generic description of the work being done. To get beyond that, you need read the actual statements of work.
Is that what DOGE and the Trump administration has been doing? Given the speed with which they are moving, I don’t think so.
This seems to be the new way of providing oversight of government contractors. Make big, broad accusations of wrongdoing and then watch the targets squirm.
It might make entertaining television, but it’s not a very strategic way of managing a business.
Every new administration needs to review the spending and programs left over from the previous administration. But taking a chainsaw to government operations only guarantees that more good is being destroyed than bad is excised.