A story today should prompt some discussion in how our society is changing as more and more Americans work for the government. For years, there has been a concern that we are becoming an institutionalized society with millions of Americans serving or working in prisons while millions more work for police and government agencies. Now, a report shows that one out of every 100 Americans work for the Defense Department. That is an astonishing figure. That figure balloons further when one considers the number of citizens working in the internal security, police, and intelligence systems.
The Economist magazine shows that the Defense Department employed 3.2 million people, including 700,000 civilians.
We beat out the Chinese Army and even more frightening Wal-Mart (which comes in third after the Red Army). McDonald’s follows in fourth. The remainder in order are the China Petroleum Corporation, the State Grid Corporation of China, National Health Service of England, Indian Railways, China Post Group, and Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Company.
Despite such huge numbers, Sen. Jon Kyl announced that he will resign from the Super Committee if the members consider significant cuts in the defense budget.
Source: Washington Post
Elaine:
“But now, they are everywhere. And some agencies … could not exist without them.””
Why is that? Is this article saying government workers arent as good?
Elaine:
“So in addition to costing more, it cost the government some of its best people — and then it sold those people back to them at two or three times as much money.””
Now whose fault is that? Are you implying that people should be forced to do a job for a particular wage?
Otteray Scribe:
balconies built for private apartments and condos have problems too. Many times the problem is a bad waterproofing/diverting detail which causes corrosion or decay.
There are some things government should do, military, police, fire [but that could easily be privatized] and whatever else is constitutionally prescribed.
If private sector projects were under-built, we would have many more failures than we do. If anything projects are over-built because of the worry over law suits.
A tidbit of news:
TPMMuckraker
Erik Prince Enters Video Game Biz With ‘Blackwater’ First-Person Shooter
Jillian Rayfield | September 12, 2011
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/09/erik_prince_enters_video_game_biz_with_blackwater.php
rafflaw,
rafflaw,
“Privatizing costs the taxpayer twice as much money so the only reason why the Right is in favor of privatizing military functions, security functions and Social Security etc., is the extra money that big corps like Blackwater can make. All at the expense of the taxpayers.”
Many well-trained military personnel have left the military for much higher pay from private contractors. Jeremy Scahill has said it’s called “going Blackwater” (Blackwater was renamed Xe).
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Dana Priest was interviewed on Fresh Air recently:
The ‘Top Secret America’ Created After Sept. 11
August 30, 2011
http://www.wbur.org/npr/140056904/the-top-secret-america-created-after-9-11
Excerpt:
“So you and I cannot pressure government to do better,” she says. “The interest groups that weigh in on every other subject matter in our governments cannot weigh in, in any public manner. So you get this cabal of people who have clearances and they weigh in — and that cabal, unfortunately, includes a profit motive because there are so many companies whose livelihoods depend on a continued flow of money to them — because [right after Sept. 11] the government relied on contractors to do the work … [because] Congress and the White House didn’t want it to appear like they were growing government while they were asking the government to do much more.”
Many of the contractors that the government hired to do counterintelligence and security work are paid much more than their public counterparts in the CIA and Homeland Security.
“[The government] is willing to pay these companies money to get the bodies,” she says. “It’s created this unintended adverse consequence: [The private companies then] also drew from the agencies. It sucked away the very people that those agencies needed to keep. And it did it because it could attract them with relatively high salaries and less stressful work than when you’re working in government. So in addition to costing more, it cost the government some of its best people — and then it sold those people back to them at two or three times as much money.”
More than 800,000 people now hold top-secret security clearances. And now an entire industry has sprung up to provide those clearances, says Priest.
“The government is now contracting contractors to do the security clearances for other contractors,” she says. “The contractors, in the beginning, were just supposed to be supplemental to the federal employees. … But now, they are everywhere. And some agencies … could not exist without them.”
Roco, sometimes it just makes for a better and stronger product. I posted the comment below on another thread last night, but it has scrolled off, so will re-post here:
This addresses the ‘public versus private’ public works issue. I am aware of several who post here regularly feel that private enterprise always does it better than public projects. Investigative reporter Roger Shuler reports on one such case. The problem arose when a privately owned dormitory had a kind of balcony called a “Juliet balcony.” Presumably named after the Shakespeare character, the balcony on the privately built dorm is not sturdy enough to stand on safely, but still has doors opening out onto the balcony where college students can go out and stand on it, safety be damned. And no lawyer type warnings on either it or the door, like you do on a new toaster or hair dryer. Despite the fact an apartment building costs a lot more than a toaster. Or for that matter, one of those cars that look like toasters.
Roger explains:
http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2011/09/is-private-enterprise-more-efficient.html
Admittedly, many government projects are overbuilt, but I suspect that if a thorough engineering survey were done, more privately built projects are undebuilt than government projects overbuilt.
Noah V:
““WASHINGTON — Despite a widespread belief that contracting out services to the private sector saves the federal government money, a new study suggests just the opposite — that the government actually pays more when it farms out work.””
Did Lee consider the cost of keeping people on payroll that may not be needed for full time work? Or the cost of extra space to handle those extra people? Or the cost of building a paper mill to supply the government paper?
So the government should now get in the business of building factories and going into the construction, engineering, farming and a whole host of industries?
I think we call that fascism/socialism/communism. It is bad enough as it is.
I have a very small business and I contract services all the time because of the cost of having a full time employee.
The other thing that needs to be said about this is that government has created the increased cost by how they deal with the private sector. For example I am bidding the design of a small building which, if bidding to a private sector client I would charge $100.00 but since I am bidding to the government and they have written an extensive scope of work I need to bid $300 to make sure I have covered all of their requirements.
So part of the problem is the way government writes their specifications and how they manage the contracts. I have heard many people say they have to charge more because of the layers of administrative regulations they deal with and then there is Davis Bacon.
Noah V:
“If you put one bare foot in a bucket of drive ice,
and you put one bare foot in a bucket of burning wood shavings,
on the average, you’ll be comfortable.”
That is exactly how the left thinks. You have nailed it very well, your example of progressive thinking is excellent.
We would say you have one burned foot and one frozen foot.
I see you have no grasp of statistics nor of biology.
Noah V,
“drive ice” or “dry ice?”
HenMan said: “In 1979, the Dept. of Education was spun off of H.E.W. and H.E.W. was renamed Dept. of Health and Human Services.”
That was before Dubya and Cheney made me dial down my conservative tendencies. In 1979, I used the name Department of Health, Wealth, and Happiness
Pete: “There are those that make the cool-aid and those that drink the cool-aid.”
Well said. It begs the question of why people who can’t afford their own plane vote Republican.
Gene H: “Roco/anon,
And I appreciate your ignorance of basic statistics.”
If you put one bare foot in a bucket of drive ice,
and you put one bare foot in a bucket of burning wood shavings,
on the average, you’ll be comfortable.
Oro Lee: “WASHINGTON — Despite a widespread belief that contracting out services to the private sector saves the federal government money, a new study suggests just the opposite — that the government actually pays more when it farms out work.”
It also adds inefficiencies in loss of “integrity of command,” a concept that each employee should be ultimately responsible to the same boss.
In most government offices (IRS excepted), a Manager oversees all employees through layers of supervisors who each have specialties. In SSA for example, SS Claims Specialists, SSI Claims Specialists, Service Representatives may have separate Supervisors, but the Manager is the final authority. Offices that have public relations specialists, information technology people, and post-entitlement specialists fit them into some group, but the Manager (or Area Director if employees are shared among offices) is the ultimate boss. In IRS Offices, a “Manager” might order toilet paper and oversee other common logistics, but the Taxpayer Service Reps work for a Manager who might be in some other city, while Revenue Officers work for a different Manager, and Revenue Agents work for yet another. In a Social Security Office, if there’s a computer problem, the Manager gets the IT guy to fix it, or he asks the Area Director to get the several office IT guy to fix it.
The Forest Service used to treat IT like SSA treated it. Now, they contract with private companies for their field units. If some Engine Boss couldn’t get his email to work, he called the IT guy. If the problem lingered, the Engine Boss would call up the chain of command. Eventually, the District Ranger might be calling the IT guy onto the carpet. Now, no matter what the GS level of the complainer, he’ll call his contractor and hear “Welcome to HP, this is V.J., how may I help you.” V. J. is thousands of miles away and doesn’t give a rat sass if he’s talking to the Engine Boss, the Engine Captain, the District Ranger, or the Forest Superintendant. It’s just another customer with an ID-10-T problem.
Likewise, in an Army unit, the Commanding Officer had final control over cooks, guards, drivers, mechanics, etc. Now, the Commanding Officer only controls people with guns. His unit is served by caterers, civilian guards, civilian convoys, none of whom works for him. If his troops are getting cold meals that should be hot or showers that electrocute them, he can call way up his chain of command to get somebody calling down the contractor’s chain of command.
Noah V-
You said,”I’m not sure why health and education are paired.”
This may be a result of the U.S. Dept.of Health, Education, and Welfare (1953-1979) being split into 2 departments. In 1979, the Dept. of Education was spun off of H.E.W. and H.E.W. was renamed Dept. of Health and Human Services. It may have to do with the Federal Govt. health and education stats coming from a single agency for 26 years. (Or maybe not.)
Gene H: “It looks good on you. It goes with your brown shirt. Which of course matches your nose.”
Very few people know about Benny the Brown Nose Reindeer. He used to run second at Christmas. He could run as fast as Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer . . . but he couldn’t stop as fast.
Anon: “This is cool. So called progressives arguing in favor of massive DOD employment. Why? Because their partisan hackery does not permit them to see the obvious, much less speak it.”
The argument has been turned around. The original problem stated was that DOD employs so many people but claims it can’t lose any to budget cuts.
It seems the same conservatives who don’t want to lose DOD budget are criticizing government jobs while not wanting to surrender any.
Anon: “With that as the argument employing 1/100 people is a huge problem — it’s a huge drain from private sector employment.”
Why is that a problem – or even a concept? Factories could employ more people if they’d just stop working for the Bureau of Coming In Late or the Office Of Filing Everything In Triplicate?
There are charts at
http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/blackworkers/blacks_public_sector11.pdf
that break out percentage of the population that works for government, education / health, retail trade, manufacturing, and business services. The charts are divided in black and non-black and subdivided by male and female, but it looks like roughly 15 – 20% work for some level of government while another 14 – 18% work in education / health.
I’m not sure why health and education are paired.
rafflaw
1, September 13, 2011 at 6:19 pm
Roco,
I didn’t know conservatives had separate membership cards.
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there are those that make the cool-aid and those that drink the cool-aid.