Your aside about it being so much worse when the govt is your only customer is right on.

Much is made every now and then about the utterly broken and inefficient government contracting and procurement process. Every so often there are much trumpeted plans to streamline it and make it efficient. Usually they die quiet deaths.

Why is that?

Well, certainly one aspect of it is this: there are quite a few suppliers out there of everything from janitorial services to PCs to submarines who are experts in navigating government procurement processes. In many cases, the firm's *only* true advantage is that they know how to do business with the government. The trend is increasing: more and more you see major defense contractors like Northrup-Grumman, Boeing, SAIC, etc. providing truly mundane office technology, admin, and logistics functions for government agencies. Not because Boeing is the logical choice for a firm to build a web-based employee travel booking system, but because none of the Silicon Valley firms who you'd normally look to for such a project have the requisite skills to navigate the horrific RFP and bidding process.

Firms like those contractors (and there are non-defense examples of them too) are tremendously well connected in DC, often move their headquarters to DC these days, spend fortunes on lobbyists, and routlinely hire former legislators and their staff, former military officers, and former executive branch officials, even when said former govt people aren't well qualified for their new jobs.

How much interest do such firms have in "procurement reform" succeeding?