THE COMPETITION QUESTION.

This article examines the competitiveness of the U.S. federal procurement sector. According to Fedspending.org, the U.S. government spent $415 billion in contracting in the first three quarters of 2006, an increase of nearly $30 billion more than total contract expenditures in 2005. A 2007 report from Representative Henry Waxman of California, there was an increased awarding of federal contracts in fiscal 2000-2006 without full-and-open competition from $67.5 million to $206.9 billion. In response to Waxman's figures, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) released its own contracting statistics. OFPP claims that in 2006 the federal government competed 64 percent of its $394 billion in contracting dollars.