Buying goods and services has long been problematic for the federal government.  As noted in Burning Money, J. Peter Grace’s 1984 book that summarized the work of the Grace Commission, “The federal government is the world’s largest: power producer, insurer, lender, borrower, hospital system operator, landowner, tenant, holder of grazing land, timber seller, grain owner, warehouse operator, ship owner, and truck fleet operator.”   

That means the federal government needs a substantial amount of goods and services, totaling $900 billion annually according to the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Federal Acquisition Service.  Many agencies have their own in-house procurement offices, often buying the same items and materials as other agencies and missing the opportunity to leverage the buying and negotiating power of a centralized U.S. purchasing agency.

President Trump took a significant step toward eliminating this inefficiency by issuing an Executive Order (EO) on Eliminating Waste and Saving Taxpayer Dollars by Consolidating Procurement on March 20, 2025.   The EO will not only save money by consolidating about $400 billion of domestic purchases into GSA but also allow federal agencies to focus on their core missions.  GSA had anticipated the EO by announcing on March 11, 2025, that the agency would initiate a pilot project for performing the procurement function for other agencies by March 30, 2025.

GSA already has government-wide responsibilities like the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), which is getting a makeover to improve its review and approval process.  The program certifies that a cloud computing service meets the security requirements required for an authorization to operate across the federal government.  The FedRAMP process has been problematic since its inception during the Obama administration, with delays in application processing, high costs to vendors, and excessive controls.

The efforts by GSA and the White House to consolidate common goods purchasing and improve the FedRAMP process and will save taxpayer dollars by eliminating duplication in government purchasing and streamlining the application process by which certified information technology systems are approved and purchased.