Overall federal procurement has dropped by more than 20% since the 2011 government fiscal year.  Led by a decline in DOD spending of 28% over that same time, the total reduction took approximately $110 billion out of the federal market.  These numbers are part of a new Bloomberg Government report and explain why contractors may feel like their federal business belt has tightened.  While much of the reduction is attributable to a decline in direct overseas military support spending, research, maintenance and other “routine” accounts have also seen reductions.  Competition is also up, especially at DOD, meaning that companies are fighting harder for each dollar that is spent.  The Bloomberg report did offer some good news.  DOD spending is forecasted to have bottomed out and may actually increase by $2 billion over the 2016 fiscal year, providing that Congress gets around to passing an actual spending measure.  We probably won’t know about that, however, until late next week.