Part of the reason this is getting so much visibility is DHS was eight different agencies prior to 9/11 that each ordered thier own equipment, ammo, and other supplies. They really haven't grown more than 10% from pre-9/11 numbers but when they stop doing things as eight agencies and do them as one, the numbers get big enough people notice.
A little more gov't contracting 101:
We'll use ammo as an example, if each DHS agency lets a contract for ammo for 750,000 rounds of 40SW and the bids come in at $1.3495/rd or $1.3995/rd (Cabelas online price for Federal Guard Dog or Dakota PowrBall 40SW) but since it's such a large order both manufacturers knock 10% off the price. They can't just send a check to Federal for the $912K and call it good. That money has to be appropriated by Congress in one bill, then authorized in another. Once the money is allocated by Congress, it must be sent to DHS as part of thier budget then passed to the agencies. There is a "pass through fee" of say .05% that DHS uses to pay the salary of the financial management specialist that handled the money, thier manager, those people's occupation fees (building maintenance costs/lights/water) and any IT fees to connect to the internet. Before all eight agencies did this individually so the orders were relatively small but the fees were the same for each contract. Now DHS make a bigger single order, so now the manufacturer instead of 10%, discounts it 15%. Also there is only one pass through instead of eight so the overall budget cost is much lower.
Think of it as Costco. You buy a box of 1000 paper plates for $3 instead of 5 boxes of 200 for $1.50 each with the sales tax being .30 or .75 respectively IF your wife lets you have the checkbook.
One other thing is that cost is constant for the life of the contract, so if next year Federal decides to raise the commercial price to $1.39/rd due to inflaton or increased cost DHS is still only paying $1.147/rd
These contracts take a minimum of a year to two years to get from the request to the final winning bid being awarded the contract. This stuff won't be made for another year after that.
Another piece of the puzzle you may not realize but most of the DHS components changed calibers about a year or so after DHS came to be. They had to let contracts for new weapons, but still had to maintain stocks of the old ammo (9mm) until all the new guns were in the inventory which again was a four to five year contract. Then you have to retrain all your agents with the new gun before you can put it in the field. Now they are getting to the point where the old ammo is gone and the new ammo from the first contract is getting depleted, so if you look at it that way, it IS Bush's fault
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