The House committee also said it “supports the
administration’s efforts to improve government performance
through competition. Enabling federal employees who
perform commercial activities the opportunity to retool
their operations to improve efficiency by competing against
private contractors is an effective way to eliminate waste
and introduce innovative solutions into the operations of
the federal government.”
“The committee looks forward to working with the
administration to remove legislative restrictions on
competitive sourcing so that all federal agencies have
full use of this management tool,” the document says. That
likely is a reference to restrictions that have been
written into spending bills the last several years–and
that likely will arise again in the current budget
cycle–aimed at restoring certain provisions of
contracting-out policy that predated 2003 changes in
Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76. Those
restrictions include, for example, a requirement that
the Defense Department–which accounts for the large
majority of contracting-out efforts–can only contract-out w
ork if a savings of at least 10 percent or $10 million
is indicated.
