Understanding Government Contract Law - Assignment Example

One strongly believes that the concept of discretion and immunity should be valued with appropriate guiding principles, as well as authoritative officers’ oversight and conformity to transparency in governance. Any discretionary function should still be subject to reportorial documentation to serve as advisory to higher-level officers and to serve as lessons where best practices could be emulated. On the contrary, erroneous decisions that lead to excessive overspending due to discretionary functions should still be reported to evaluate the laxity in control and to correct the noted weaknesses.

Government spending practices directly affect the concept of discretionary function in terms of providing a precursor to the subsequent action of similar or related instances. For instance, a contracting officer would exercise discretionary function in terms of acquiring a piece of relatively new or innovative equipment without historical data. Previous government spending on items which share the greatest similarities could be used. Likewise, government spending practices could indirectly affect the concept of discretionary function through previous spending decisions that influence future actions in other realms of endeavor.

For example, government spending based on the reformed health care, without previous records, could indirectly affect the discretionary function of contracting officers in terms of the need to adjust and adapt to new policies and regulations that could be applicable in the contracting officers’ workplace and in future acquisition decisions.