01-31-2018, 12:37 PM
(01-31-2018, 10:48 AM)Nately120 Wrote: Look, I'm playing devil's advocate here. I'm a marketing guy and I'm more interested in the way people perceive things and how that drives their behavior. I say this sort of scenario, if presented to a Trump fan before the election or now, would have been viewed as one where a career politician would have just passed along the max cost to the taxpayers with no care about the price, because that's what politicians do.
Trump would have fostered competition between bidders and used the free-market and his own skill as the best businessman in the world to save the taxpayers money. That's the perception, and that's why this country needed THE businessman in charge, rather than just another tax-blowing, no-bid contract-loving politician.
You get it. You know how this stuff works, but the consumer base doesn't. It doesn't matter in the end though, because even the people who think Trump could have used "business" to save the taxpayers money would excuse it by saying that he's too busy defeating ISIS to waste time on refrigerator deals.
I am actually a marketing guy too, glad to know I'm not alone here! My background is in business development and marketing around technology and security in the government sector, so I have some knowledge of how all this works. There was a fallacy coming in by Trump and his supporters that the federal government easily works inside of the "free-market". In this specific case for example it isn't a free market as this is a sole source project being there are limited people with the correct skill set, clearance and knowledge to accomplish this task. This is somewhat common in high level government purchasing because it tends to be riddled with special requests on niche items.
From the public perception stand point you are right this plays bad in the media. I was more so trying to take the middle ground position here to try and be a balanced voice on this particular subject.
