For many outside of Washington, DC, and a few within, the federal contracting process appears to be a bureaucratic morass in which Beltway Bandits “game” the bidding process to win contracts.
Occasional reports of seemingly strange awards for PR and other types of work, like the infamous $500 hammers, appear to confirm people's suspicions. Most recently, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) awarded a $300,000, no-bid PR contract to an obscure Alaska-based company called ANI, with DC-based Qorvis Communications as a subcontractor.
Since ...