The FAR is 2,000 pages of rules that slow us down. Time to cut it to 50 pages. Time to make it work.
The Problem: Too Many Rules
The Federal Acquisition Regulation is 2,000 pages long. Nobody can read it all. Nobody can understand it all. And it grows bigger every year.
We've created a system where following the rules matters more than getting results. Where paperwork matters more than performance. Where only specialists can navigate the maze.
What Procurement Should Do
Strip away the complexity, and procurement has four simple jobs:
- Buy what the government needs at fair prices
- Spend taxpayer money honestly
- Move fast enough to matter
- Get the best products and ideas from the market
Everything else is extra weight. Rules made to prevent problems from 50 years ago still slow us down today.
Cut It Down to Size
What if we took a chainsaw to the FAR and cut it to just 50 pages?
- Replace thick rulebooks with simple principles
- Focus on results, not checklists
- Give decision power to the people doing the work
- Learn from mistakes instead of just punishing them
- Use business methods that work in the real world
Cut These First
Our chainsaw should cut through:
- Paperwork that exists to justify more paperwork
- Step-by-step instructions that forget why we're doing this in the first place
- Special interest rules that each sound good but together create gridlock
- Requirements from the age of typewriters and filing cabinets
- Safety measures that cost more than the problems they prevent
Keep Only What Works
After cutting, we'd keep only what really matters:
- Clear visibility into how money is spent
- Competition where it helps, not where it just adds delay
- Simple rules for simple purchases, tougher rules only for complex ones
- Measuring what we got, not how we got it
- Smart risk-taking instead of perfect safety
Procurement isn't about perfect paperwork. It's about getting what taxpayers need, when they need it, at prices they can afford. The rest is just getting in the way.