Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Mitch
Daniels recently announced that the Bush Administration would not support
the Truthfulness, Responsibility, and Accountability in Contracting (TRAC)
Act. The announcement comes on the heels of an aggressive lobbying campaign
by the AIA to defeat this harmful legislation.
The TRAC Act would prohibit any federal agency from
making a decision "to privatize, outsource, contract out, or contract
for the performance of a function currently performed by such agency or
to conduct a study to convert the performance of the function to the performance
by a contractor." An agency could apply for permission to contract
out, but must first conduct a laborious public/private competition. If
a private contract would prevent "extraordinary economic harm"
and save the government "at least 10%," it may be awarded to
the private sector.
Soon after taking office, President Bush directed
OMB to develop a plan to use competition to help reduce the size of government
and make it more cost effective and efficient. OMB concluded that the
TRAC Act would be counterproductive to the president's plan. Daniels argues
that it is unlikely lawmakers would pass the bill after analyzing it and
recognizing the potential harm it would cause.
If passed, the TRAC Act would severely reduce government
contract work for architects and engineers in private practice and would
likely overwhelm architects in government. Federal agencies manage and
coordinate the design process and look to the specialized expertise of
private-sector architects to perform an enormous amount of the design
work.
Copyright 2001 The American Institute of Architects.
All rights reserved.
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