In technical fields, military contractors get paid significantly more money because they're significantly more competent. Is there corruption and graft in the process or exceptions to the rule? Absolutely.
At the end of the day, the military is broken - like pretty much everything the government is in charge of. Donald Rumsfelt has been demonized pretty significantly but he had a decent plan for overhauling it. It basically got killed by Senior Officers and Senior Government employees because it would have killed off a ton of the bureaucracy that gives those people the cushy, high paying jobs they all end up with.