The voters didn’t quite create a blue wave, although the numbers moving from Republican to Democrat have definitely made the House a very blue-ish territory. Of course the Democrats aren’t any more monolithic than the Republicans were, and pressure from the Democratic left wing, especially leading up to a presidential election, may create interesting reading in the Washington, D.C. bubble.
But what will it mean for us as Federal contractors?
One possibility is that we’ll keep on avoiding the “continuing resolutions” – the last two years we’ve had full budgets and this year we got that in before the new FY started, for the first time in a decade. I’m hoping that we can continue down this path, and give the Federal budget makers and the folks who divide it up and authorize spending, the time to get it done.
I don’t know about your company, but mine has been responding to RFIs and RFPs in the 1st FY quarter like the floodgates have opened, and that’s a good thing, because awards will come in time to actually enjoy the spending for most of a full year.
Another possibility is that we’ll return to those continuing resolutions – this will be bad, but not catastrophic, as solid budgets are in place from the past two years that can be used to move forward.
The thing I fear the most is that there will be paralysis, as the two sides don’t really put running the country first, and will allow the budgets to be taken hostage by the political process. This would be a bad thing, and I certainly hope we’re not headed back there.
Happy Thanksgiving, happy holidays, and we’ll see what the New Year brings.
