Comment on FR Doc # 2026-09527
Alice MelendezOpposeAdvocacy
Summary: Alice Melendez, representing the advocacy organization Public Citizen, argues that Form 1403 is hopelessly outdated and should be scrapped. She suggests either replacing the manual process with AI-driven software solutions or devolving the authority for such forms to the states.
I came to writing this comment on an obscure but once-fundamental form in the architecture of the contracting apparatus, because on the night you posted this request for public comment I dreamed “1403, 1404… some kind of administration” as I noted in my journal upon waking on 05/14. Imagine my surprise when I found that the numbers matched the prior day’s Federal Registry posting. This began a Journey to the Center of the FAR, an experience which, alongside everything else going on with my government, leaves me somewhat at a loss for how to focus my comment, though the spiritual intelligence which informs my dreams requests my participation in this. In short, my recommendation is that 1403 be scrapped as hopelessly old fashioned. Return authority for governance to the states or turn it over to AI. An attempt to get one's head around the changes proposed through the RFO and the OMB revision to the Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance will prove that the current system is too vast and complicated to effectively trace cause and effect of proposed changes even in a rough way. The only thing that can be assumed is that gigantic corporations with teams of lawyers and financial analysts and hundreds of milllions of dollars at stake have a better chance at the attempt than the citizenry, which is hardly a class any more, certainly not at a national scale. My full comment is attached.