Maybe it’s a rule of thumb with federal spending: The bigger the project, the more arrogantly our tax dollars are spent.

It sure seems that way with the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, after the rejection of a protest against the VA’s $168 million contract for construction of a 168,000 square-foot VA Medical Center — what may be the largest federal spending project ever undertaken in Butler County.

In its ruling, the GAO said it has a judicially-expressed view that “an awarded contract should not be treated as void, even if improperly awarded, unless the illegality of the award is plain and palpable.”

What does that mean? That the VA’s decision might be wrong, but that’s OK as long as no laws were broken? What kind of standard is that?

Remember, this is the second time the VA has awarded this contract. It rescinded the first deal in August 2013 after an executive with the winning bidder, Westar Development of Ohio, was accused of fraud in an unrelated federal project. It was later discovered that his silent partner was already serving prison time for fraud and had been banned from federal construction work.

Westar was set to build on the Deshon Woods site, adjacent to the existing VA Medical Center, on state Route 68 — in other words, Deshon Woods originally was the VA’s preferred site.

Following its canceled deal with Westar, the VA reopened bids for the project to four prospective developers, including Oxford Development Co. of Pittsburgh, which by then had reached a deal with Westar to buy the Deshon Woods property on Route 68 if awarded the lease.

On Dec. 31, the VA awarded a 20-year, $8.4 million per year contract to Cambridge Healthcare Solutions to build the center along North Duffy Road in Center Township, about 1.5 miles away from the existing VA center.

Oxford filed a protest claiming the VA unfairly lowered its technical score for the center Oxford proposed for Deshon Woods — previously identified as the VA’s preferred site.

Oxford alleged the VA penalized its proposal because of issues the government had with Westar.

“Oxford strongly believes that the VA did not objectively score the technical aspects of its offer, but instead, purposefully gave Oxford lower scores because of unfounded fears and concerns stemming from the previous bad acts of a Westar employee,” the company said in its protest to the GAO.

That seems like a valid point. How can the original preferred site’s score drop during a second review of construction bids?

We’re not the only ones asking these questions. Congressman Mike Kelly also wonders what’s going on with the site selection.

“We don’t really know how they got to where they are,” Kelly said about the GAO’s dismissal of Oxford’s complaint.

The process is made more disconcerting because our friends and neighbors who work at the local VA have no knowledge or influence in the selection process going on in Washington. They just continue to do their jobs, and to do them competently.

They are as much in the dark as Rep. Kelly and the rest of us are.

To quote Kelly: “We need to get a clear picture of what’s going on.”