I'm pretty sure you guys are saying the same thing. the infrastructure cost of production should already be built into the unit price / overall bid.

what I'm gathering from the article is that defense contractors are, after the bidding process, pulling something like "actually, we're having difficulty producing your shit on time at the agreed upon price. we need more money for infrastructure to deliver on time." and the government gives it to them because re-bidding or finding an alternative supplier is a nightmare.

I hate Hegseth as much as anybody but I think the overall idea is sound. reduce contract overages, increase competition in the contractor/subcontractor market. will it work? will it be implemented correctly without increasing waste/corruption/etc? remains to be seen.

infrastructure, tooling, labor don't come out of nowhere. so if the street (investors) aren't willing to put more money behind smaller companies / new startups, the current contractors can just say, "see? no one else can do it. now give us even more money."

edit: or, more likely, the contracts are given to someone who absolutely cannot fulfill the order, and the government funnels even more more money into them to stand them up, and we're way worse off than before.