Funding that Needs Needs; Needs that Need Funding

Want to understand the government acquisitions world? Ponder the title of this post.

The goverment has many programs, for which the metric of success is that they spend money on-time and on-target. Simply look like a target, apply in the window, and money will come your direction. Often the program can’t get rid of money fast enough, so they become a funding source looking for needs to justify spending money on.

This contrasts with a legitimate need, suffocating out there in the world of real problems. They try hard to get funding, but cannot because their request is not in the right form nor at the right time.