look into private government contracting. Specifically, low dollar contracts that 'cost' the government 10s of thousand

This is rampant waste in Government Contracting. Large agencies, like the Defense Logistics Agency have multi million dollar contracts that they let large companies write themselves (Boeing, Sikorsky, UTC, Lockheed.) Additionally, low dollar value contracts (under $1000) have so many unnecessary requirements that they end up costing the federal government up to 3 times as much as the dollar value of the contract (because of man hours it takes to manage the contract.) There are contracts for $17 for basic items. It takes 60+ man hours at an average of $40/hr to manage this contract. Reform is needed to allow the services to make these kinds of purchases on a credit card! There are, literally, billions of dollars being wasted.