Watch Appropriations Process

Meanwhile, congressional committees are starting to draft the annual appropriations bills, which in recent years have become the vehicles for restrictions on contracting-out. For example, the last several annual spending bills for the Defense Department, which does most of the government’s contracting-out, have allowed DoD to convert jobs only when the projected savings are at least 10 percent or $10 million. The White House traditionally opposes such restrictions, which in effect seek to reverse some changes the administration ordered in 2003 in the government’s contracting-out guidance, Circular A-76.