Extra Bucks to Cheat Americans Out of Jobs

The present executive branch has been spectacularly ill managed. One of the huge offenses was recently discovered at Walter Reed, where veterans have been disserved by turning over their care to contract employees. Today we have news that mail had gone undelivered to the veterans there for as much as a year, by contract employees. A commenter at Eschaton guessed that the mail was addressed in English, which was the problem.

It seems that the CIA has discovered a threat, which it is set up to do. Betcha thought I was going to say that its was those durned illegals working inside the government that were a threat to our security. Nope. It is the Homeland Security Department, using contract employees who are costing us huge amounts that threaten the budget further.

We've spent countless billions of dollars since 9/11 to bolster defenses, improve spying capabilities and chase evil-doers to their remotest lairs. But there's a remaining, gaping hole in America's security picture: the one in our wallets.

The CIA moved this month to plug that hole, announcing a 10 percent cut in its private-contracting workforce. The agency recognized that outsourcing can be a net money-loser and poses security risks by reducing the CIA's ability to retain its most valued and experienced staffers.

Other government agencies in charge of our frontline defenses also need to scrutinize their private-contractor workforce and ask whether they're really better off relying on temps to keep the nation safe and secure.

The Department of Homeland Security, where contractors account for 60 percent of personnel, shares the CIA's problem of sagging staff morale and mounting expenses linked to outsourcing. Surveys show that job satisfaction at homeland security is lowest in the entire government.
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Contractors also have divided loyalties, answering to boardroom executives and stockholders, not taxpayers. Their primary mission is to make profits.

We encourage efforts to downsize government and increase efficiency. But there's a careful balance to be struck, especially when it comes to national security.

The CIA deserves praise for questioning the conventional wisdom on contractors.

I guess at this point I should declare to the Dallas Morning News, well, I'll be hogswallowed. Its usual pro-business bias is becoming one of the casualties of the cretin in chief's war against the working man, and against common reason. There is no excuse for this race to contract out all of the jobs that otherwise would provide good employment opportunities with our government.

When it goes to the extremes of costing our taxpayers extra dollars to put the swill in the trough, the complete anti-American character of the White House shines through. True colors, green, not red-white-and-blue little lapel flags.