Throwing Good Money After Bad

Trey Smith

If you contracted with a company to install new carpet in your living room and they did a slipshod job, would you choose them to return to put in new carpet in your family room? The discerning consumer generally does not throw good money after bad. Unfortunately, the federal government -- particularly our armed forces -- tends not to be a discerning consumer!

Just days after an inspector general report revealed that a giant Pentagon contractor performed “unsatisfactory” work in Afghanistan, the U.S. Air Force awarded the firm another multimillion-dollar pot of cash.

Virginia’s DynCorp, which performs everything from private security to construction for the U.S. military, has re-upped with Air Force to help pilots learn basic flying skills on the T-6A/B Texan II aircraft, a training plane. The deal is only the latest between DynCorp and the Air Force on the Texan II: In June, the Air Force Materiel Command gave the company a deal worth nearly $55 million for training services. The latest one, announced late Thursday, is worth another $72.8 million, and lasts through October 2013.

But the Air Force’s lucrative vote of confidence in DynCorp comes not even a week after the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction blasted the company for performing “unsatisfactory” construction work at an Afghan Army base in Kunduz. The base was “at risk of structural failure” when the watchdogs initially inspected, but the Army Corps of Engineers chose to settle DynCorp’s contract, a move that awarded the company “$70.8 million on the construction contracts and releas[ed] it from any further liabilities and warranty obligation.”

This is one of those areas in which radicals on the right and left agree. Government agencies have shown a great propensity to award lucrative contracts to corporations that don't deserve them. When your company is handed billions of dollars regardless of your performance, where is there an incentive to do a good job?