April King 🌀

Hello Mr. Legum, You’ve built a website that relies on a specific interpretation of “potential” in the context of federal spending it. While @Oilfield_Rando mentioned this earlier, I went a step further and confirmed these definitions myself. In the USASpending rpt.awards_search table, larger federal contracts often specify two key fields: 🔹 ordering_period_end_date (labeled as the “Potential End Date”) 🔹 base_and_all_options_value (labeled as the “Potential Award Value”) Contrary to everyday usage of “potential” (which implies something uncertain or unlikely as your website suggests), “Potential Award Value” in these databases represents a contract’s maximum cost if all negotiated options are exercised. It is not a mere “possibility”; it’s the upper bound of contractual spending authority. And in practice, contractors squeeze these agreements to their fullest extent, because why would they give up money? To prove this point, I ran a SQL query to extract the first 60,000 contracts expiring in 2024 with outlays over $1 million and with no ordering period extending beyond 2024. Out of these awards, zero contracts had an outlay less than its Potential Award Value, and the vast majority vastly exceeded their Current Award Amount. So, yes, I concur with @Oilfield_Rando - @DOGE, if anything, is underestimating their own savings.