Vendor capture and the limits of fast government reform

Photo credit: cottonbro studio via Pexels. Commentary by Matthew Burton. Niskanen Center – November 18, 2025.

Last spring, as I was ending my time at the U.S. Treasury as an oversight official monitoring the IRS’s IT modernization efforts, one initiative by the Trump administration gave me hope that progress would be made after I left: trimming federal contracts with large consulting firms. The indications had been favorable. In early February, the General Services Administration (GSA) told agencies throughout the federal government to review a list of what it described as nonessential consulting contracts. A few weeks later, the GSA took the next step and tasked agencies with reporting all their contracts with any of 10 specific firms. Those on the list included global consulting giants such as Accenture, Booz Allen, and Deloitte. […]

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