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'Revolving Door' Spins Between AT&T, Government
An anonymous reader sends this quote from the Center for Public Integrity:
That AT&T just won an eight-figure contract to provide the federal government's General Services Administration with new mobile devices isn't itself particularly notable. What is: Casey Coleman, an AT&T executive responsible for "delivering IT and professional services to federal government customers," oversaw the GSA's information technology division and its $600 million IT budget as recently as January. ... While there’s no evidence anything illegal took place, the public still should be aware of, and potentially worried about, Coleman’s spin through the revolving door between government and companies that profit from government, said Michael Smallberg, an investigator at the nonpartisan watchdog group Project on Government Oversight. ... Federal government employees leaving public service for lucrative private sector jobs is commonplace. The Project on Government Oversight has called on the federal government to — among other actions — ban political appointees and some senior-level staffers from seeking employment with contractors that “significantly benefited” from policies they helped formulate during their tenure in government.
Surely the government's wasting our tax dollars
You really didn't need the rest of those words.
TFS does a fine job of pointing out the potential drawbacks of the fact that people at the top of their field tend to remain in that field as they change jobs. Since the potentially negative side is somewhat clear, I won't say more on that, just acknowledge it.
On the other hand, suppose you're hiring someone to negotiate contracts to build roads. Wouldn't it be a good idea to hire someone who knows something about road-building projects, and the contracts involved? A former manager of a road-building company is uniquely qualified to understand the issues, the ways a road company
company might try to screw over the taxpayers. They are far better able to protect the taxpayers' interests than I would ben for example, because I don't know anything about road contracts. So I WANT my taxpayer interests represented by someone with high level experience in the industry.
A well thought out post touching on the complexity in dealing with a contentious issue.
What exactly are you doing on slashdot?
This article and the one before it about hollywood vs google are indicators of the same problem. When government and industry collude, the public becomes the enemy.
the real solution here is to put pressure on the govt employees so there has to be a "cool down" time after they conclude their govt service and before going to a regulated company. For example 12 months. This way you can't be the lead govt guy, then jump to a private company when it's time to negotiate a multi-lucre contract. NOTE: the best way to put pressure on somebody is to have them sign to a "cool down" clause when they are hired. Typically you do this by $$$, i.e giving someone an extended vacation.
That is a valid point, but it overlooks that it doesn't have to be the exact same company. The question is, did ATT get the contract over another provider because of his involvement or because it was the best deal for the people? That question would not be there if a different carrier got the contract.