Relationship between Contract Bloat and OFPP? Not by the data.

(*This is a rewritten version of an analysis conducted on October 10, 2025)

“The reason contract bloat and redundancy exist in government contracting is OMB’s fault.  It was the acting positions that resulted in ineffective management to control contract proliferation by other agencies and keeping NASA and NIH in check.’” ~ Former Executive, General Services Administration 

This was a public claim that tries to advance an argument for the condition that created vehicle bloat in government, and to consolidate this function under GSA. With any good claim there are always opportunities to test to see if it is true or not; whether what is claimed is fact or fiction. The results were interesting. 

First step was discovery.  There is no list of former OFPP administrators. Nothing in any .gov sites, nothing on Wikipedia, nothing in Google Scholar (which I found terrible). So, I constructed a timeline of OFPP Administrators (appointed and acting) from 1988-Present starting with Allen V. Burman (who served under presidents Ronald Regan and George H. W. Bush), who began initiating the reforms that laid the foundation for Clinger-Cohen, though to the appointment of Dr. Kevin Rhodes.  I then assembled a list of government-wide vehicles to see either a) when they were established or b) when the first order was placed.[1]

And here is a table of what I found:

Administrator	Admin Appt.	Tenure (Approx.)	Tenure Description	Acquisition Vehicle Created	Start	End	Total Vehicles
Allan V. Burman	Regan/ George Bush (Conf.)	1988-1993	Oversaw implementation of CICA reforms	Multiple Award Schedules	1992	Evergreen	2
				NASA SEWP I	1993	1997
Steven Kelman	Clinton (Conf.)	1993-1997	Led FASA reforms and procurement streamlining	NIH CIO SP I	1996	2000	4
				NIH Image World	1996	2000
				NASA SEWP II	1997	2001
Deidre A. Lee	Clinton (Conf.)	1998-2000	Focused on procurement workforce development and modernization.	GSA Answers GWAC	1999	2004	7
				NIH CIO SP II	2000	2012
				NIH Image World II	2000	2005
				GSA Millenia GWAC	2000	2005
				GSA Millenia SB GWAC	2000	2005
				NASA SEWP III	2001	2007
Angela B. Styles	George W Bush (Conf.)	2001-2003	Led early Bush-era acquisition reform and small business initiatives.	None	N/A	N/A	7
Robert A. Burton	Acting – George W. Bush	2003-2006	Senior career official; maintained continuity during transition periods.	NASA SEWP IV	2007	2015	8
				GSA 8a Stars	2007	2011
Paul A. Denett	George W. Bush (Conf.)	2006-2008	Promoted performance-based contracting and strategic sourcing.	GSA Vets GWAC	2007	2012	6
Robert A. Burton	Acting – George W. Bush	2008-2009	Served again as acting administrator at end of Bush term.	None	N/A	N/A	5
Paul A. Denett	Acting – George W. Bush	2009	Transitional overlap noted in OMB records.	None	N/A	N/A	5
Daniel I. Gordon	Obama (Conf.)	2009-2011	Strengthened acquisition workforce and contractor oversight.	GSA Alliant	2009	2019	10
				GSA Alliant SB	2009	2019
				GSA Networx	2010	2020
				GSA Connections II	2011	2022
				GSA IaaS BPAs	2011	2015
Lesley A. Field	Acting – Obama	2011-2012	Veteran OFPP deputy; frequent acting head across multiple gaps.	GSA 8a Stars II	2011	2021	11
				CIO SP 3	2012	2025
				CIO SP SB 3	2012	2025
				Print Management	2011	2016
Joseph G. Jordan	Obama (Conf.)	2012-2013	Advanced strategic sourcing and supplier engagement.	GSA EaaS BPAs	2013	2020 (est.)	11
Lesley A. Field	Acting – Obama	2013-2014	Continued implementation of strategic sourcing initiatives.	GSA FSSI Wireless BPAs	2013	2021	15
				GSA Fleet Assessment	2013	2016
				GSA Office Supplies	2013	2019
				GSA OASIS SB	2014	2024
Anne E. Rung	Obama (Conf.)	2014-2017	Launched category management government-wide; expanded data-driven buying.	GSA OASIS Unrestricted	2015	2025	16
				NIH CIO CS	2015	2025
				NASA SEWP V	2015	2025
Lesley A. Field	Acting Obama/Trump	2017-2019	Career deputy providing stability; longest-acting tenure in OFPP history.	GSA Alliant II	2018	2028	19
				GSA Alliant SB	2018	2020
				GSA Vets II	2018	2028
				GSA EIS	2018	2028
				GSA GSS BPAs	2018	2022
				GSA HACCS SIN	2018	Present
				GSA Wireless SIN	2018	Present
Michael E. (Mike) Wooten	Donald J. Trump (Conf.)	2019-2021	Focused on procurement automation, small business access, and acquisition agility.	None	N/A	N/A	13
Lesley A. Field	Acting – Joe Biden	2021-2025	Maintained continuity through early Biden years; emphasized workforce and sustainability goals.	GSA 8a Stars III	2021	2031	17
				GSA 2GIT	2021	2026
				NIH CIO SP 4	2021	2025*
				NIH CIO SP 4 SB	2021	2025*
				GSA GSS Follow-on BPA	2022	2027
				GSA SCRIPS BPA	2025	2030
				GSA Ascends BPA	2021
				GSA OASIS +	2025	2035
				GSA Polaris	2025?	2035?
Kevin M. Rhodes	Donald J. Trump (Conf.)	2025 - Present	First Senate-confirmed OFPP Administrator since 2019; expected to modernize procurement data and policy coordination.	NASA SEWP VI	2026	2036	TBD
	Donald J. Trump (Conf.)			GSA Alliant 3	2026	2036

TABLE SUMMARY

• There have only been two since 2003 - Acting Administrators Robert Burton and Leslie Fields.

• Since 1993 NASA has established 6 versions of their NASA SEWP GWAC.

• Since 1993 NIH established 9 versions of their NIH GWACS (CS, SP, and SP SB)

• Since 1993 GSA established 34 versions of their various government-wide contracts.

• There was no vehicle growth in during Agela Styles and Dr. Michael Wooten’s terms as OFPP Administrator, and when Robert Burton or Paul Denett were acting Administrator's for the short period of time towards the end of the George W. Bush Administration.

TABLE ANALYSIS

In 1992, the George H. W. Bush Administration sought to address growing problems in federal IT contracting. The General Services Administration’s Federal Supply Schedule model was ill-suited for rapidly evolving IT needs, and dissatisfaction was widespread. Recognizing the need for reform, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP), and the General Services Administration (GSA) turned to NASA to pioneer a new approach—launching the government’s first Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC).

For about 10 years NASA experimented with their SEWP GWAC (recompeting it and evolving it from SEWP I-III), and NIH experimented with their models as a service GWAC (CIO-SP model 1 and 2) and a GWAC for Imaging Equipment (Image World model 1 and 2).  It is also obvious to note that this was all occurring at the time there was a Senate-confirmed OFPP Administrator.

GSA established their first GWAC in 1999 with the creation of the ANSWER GWAC (Applications ‘n Support for Widely-Diverse End-user Requirements – don’t blame me…I didn’t make the acronyms up), followed by the Alliant predecessor programs in the GSA Millennia and Millenia SB GWAC in 2000.  These were followed by their 8a Stars GWAC in 2004 and the establishment of the Vets GWAC in 2007.  This decision was followed by the creation of the Alliant and Alliant SB GWAC family (which were in direct ‘competition’ with NITAAC’s CIO-SP program).

These actions (along with the establishment of the GSA GWAC family) run contrary to why GWACs were created to begin with - to create structures outside of GSA as an option for the federal government to meet their IT acquisition needs.  Shortly thereafter GSA began duplicating vehicles and efforts.

During the mid 2000’s ta GSA Administrator led a campaign very much like the one being waged today.  She openly questioned why NASA would be in the position to serve the needs of federal acquisitions through GWACs and GSA should ‘take’ their program.  This was the first time GSA and GSA-driven interests tried to kill NASA’s program, and OMB disagreed and allowed NASA to launch their 4th version of their SEWP GWAC.  They made many of the same claims made repeatedly by former GSA executives today.  In fact, in many cases it was the same former executives.

When GSA started building outsourcing initiatives around the Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative and later through Category Management.   To address the need for data and definition, GSA instituted a mechanism of Schedule-based government-wide BPAs as a tool and really got into the acquisition vehicle creation game.  Companies now had to go through the administrative burden of managing their Schedules contract, add the new burden of responding to BPA requirements and managing the BPA terms, before then getting to the additional expense required to bid on real requirements driven work that would come from task orders, which they would then have to put resources towards, execute, and manage.  It was not a model of efficiency, and Small Business interests took issue with what they viewed as an anti-competetive nature of some of the FSSI vehicles.

WHAT TO CONCLUDE

After looking at the historical record ask yourself again, what has been the reason and cause of government contract bloat?  Is the claim that a lack of a politically appointed OFPP Administrator is the cause of government-wide vehicle bloat, or are these the conditions we find ourselves in due to self-inflicted wounds by a single agency?  Look at the chart above and tell me, what has been the cause of increased costs and who appears responsible for this condition?

[1] Using BGov for Historical Information on Federal Contract Data.