Most competent contracting doesn't go for lowest-cost bidder. Rather, bids are generally scored for some metric, and a good contracting agency should additionally be evaluating the contractors to figure out if they actually are capable of performing their bid without cost overruns.
One of the contentions of Alon Levy [author of the blog in question] is that the primary reason for inexcusably high costs in the US is the hollowing out of agencies to the point that they can't do this sort of evaluation anymore.
One of the contentions of Alon Levy [author of the blog in question] is that the primary reason for inexcusably high costs in the US is the hollowing out of agencies to the point that they can't do this sort of evaluation anymore.