People and organizations change when there is incentive to do so.
It has not escaped the notice of defense related companies, they can best obtain and then retain, generally regardless of cost, any contract by spreading it across as many Congressional Districts as possible. They have been doing this for a number of years and it gets worse as large defense companies acquire smaller ones.
Command economic signals via the political flavored acquisition system have replaced performance, value and other tenets of capitalism. This process does little to encourage companies to change or new companies to enter the market. Certainly Small Business set asides provide some notion of fairness, but in the end these companies just provide extra insulation to the larger primes looking for a check in the box and low rates to offset their larger payroll.
This means there is less likelihood that market based decisions will replace political direction in defense contracting. Actually using performance and value as acquisition criteria, defense acquisitions might find opportunity for businesses to grow in business friendly states with new and different companies vying for business. In turn, realizing the need to attract business, non-business friendly states might just change to gain a defense related company or business. It would help the defense industry and the general economy. Certainly California could use some Texas-like changes and the NAASCO shipyard is certainly among the most efficient with good quality control.
Mississippi certainly has a cost of living advantage for the folks working at the shipyard in Pascagoula or in the Austal facility on Alabama’s Gulf Coast. There are some quality issues to discuss, however – (think cathodic protection). If politics and the inane defense contracting system forces production to these areas there is again no incentive to change. Also note that the House Armed Services Committee, the Navy, DOD, Congress and the White House have all bought off on spending precious shipbuilding resources on not one fairly useless combatant ship, but two. National Defense should be politically off-limits. Most people in Washington would think this a naïve position, beyond a worker’s commute from DC; this would be considered common sense. So what are we lacking on Capital Hill and at the Pentagon?
