Congress, Military, Politics, Society

One Percent of Americans Works For The Defense Department

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

168 thoughts on “One Percent of Americans Works For The Defense Department”

  1. A bit OT, but since the thread has moved in this direction….

    As one of America’s greatest judges, Learned Hand, once cautioned, “Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it.” -David Cole

    http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/sep/29/after-september-11-what-we-still-dont-know/?pagination=false

    After September 11: What We Still Don’t Know

    David Cole

    September 29, 2011

    Excerpt:

    But most disturbing, from the standpoint of resurrecting the rule of law, the administration has refused to confront honestly the nation’s past wrongs. As President Obama entered office, he sought to make a clean break with his predecessor. But at the same time, he has insisted that we look forward, not back. His administration has refused to conduct the criminal investigation that the Convention Against Torture requires wherever there are credible allegations that a person within our jurisdiction has committed torture. His Justice Department vetoed the recommendation of its own Office of Professional Responsibility that lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee be referred to their bar associations for disciplinary action in view of their having failed to provide candid legal advice in drafting the “torture memos.” The administration has sought to derail efforts in Spain to investigate US responsibility for torture of Spanish citizens held at Guantánamo. And President Obama continues to oppose even a high-level commission to investigate and report on the nation’s departure from the rule of law and descent into torture, abduction, and disappearances.

    Obama appears to believe that such an investigation would be divisive, and might undermine his efforts to portray himself as above partisan wrangling. But division is a fact of life in Washington these days. And being above the fray is not an unmitigated good; some things are worth fighting for. A legal and moral accounting of the wrongs we have done should be high on the list.

    Because so much was done under the veil of secrecy, much remains unknown about the extent of the illegality. Mark Danner’s publication in these pages of the Red Cross’s report on the abusive interrogations of “high-value” detainees provides a glimpse at the horrors US agents inflicted.4 But we do not even know how many people US officials have abducted, rendered, disappeared, tortured, or killed. We do not know the extent of the injuries suffered, and still being suffered, by those we abused. We still know relatively little about the mistreatment of most of the Guantánamo detainees. We have not apologized to even a single victim—not even to those, like Canadian citizen Maher Arar and German citizen Khaled al-Masri, who were targeted for renditions and torture based on misinformation, and have been cleared of any wrongdoing themselves.

    Meanwhile, our former president in his memoir has proudly proclaimed that he personally authorized waterboarding—a practice we prosecuted as torture in the past when it was used against our troops. The former vice-president recently replied affirmatively when asked whether waterboarding should “still be a tool” of interrogation. Failing to condemn such blatant wrongdoing in some official way leaves an open wound both for the victims and for the integrity of our system, and implies that the tactics were neither lawless nor immoral. The rule of law may be tenacious when it is supported, but violations of it that go unaccounted corrode its very foundation.

    All of which only underscores the continuing need for an engaged civil society committed to the ideals of liberty and law. The past decade suggests that the rule of law may be stronger than cynics thought. It teaches that adherence to values of liberty, equality, and dignity is more likely to further than to obstruct our security interests. But it also illustrates our collective reluctance to confront our past, a reluctance that threatens to erode our most important values. As one of America’s greatest judges, Learned Hand, once cautioned, “Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it.” (end of excerpt)

  3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFxlzPKLuvg

    Regarding a Truth Commission instead of war crimes trials, we need both, IMO, with all due respect to our host. Let’s start with war crimes trials and then proceed with a Truth Commission to uncover the rest of the mess. And this time, unlike the last, we need to hold people accountable — we need a commission with teeth.

    Start somewhere… start anywhere… but for God’s sake, do something. (And the word “homeland” should be eliminated from our vernacular.)

    There are terrible things going on domestically that have not yet seen the light of day — activities that are seriously and significantly impacting the lives of many good and decent Americans. We will never get to the truth without hearings of some sort.

    Thanks, Dredd, for referring us back to your article. You wrote: “Dana Priest indicated that the secret police web is larger than she first reported in her article and book “Top Secret America”, further mentioning on the show that Homeland Security is building a headquarters “larger than the Pentagon”.”

    Fact: “The secret police web” is extensive. And it’s cruel. Furthermore, it’s actions are inconsistent with the rule of law… and, frequently, unconstitutional. Something’s gotta give…

    The U.S. is not “obeying the law” with regard to its domestic activities. Maybe it’s adhering to the letter of the law, but certainly not its spirit.

  4. anon nurse,

    The former head of the Senate Intelligence Committee that did an investigation soon after 9/11 recently did just that in public on The Dylan Ratigan Show.

    He wants a new 9/11 investigation of the intelligence related to Saudi Arabia because “9/11 changed everything”.

  5. Someone on the Senate Intelligence Committee needs to step up to the plate and demand a second “in-depth investigation of America’s growing intelligence community” in the spirit of Frank Church.

    http://intelligence.senate.gov/memberscurrent.html

    There are domestic activities that have not yet come to light and continue to this day. These activities run contrary to the rule of law and are, beyond any shadow of a doubt, unconstitutional.

  8. There are domestic activities that have not yet come to light and continue to this day. These activities run contrary to the rule of law and are, beyond a shadow of any doubt, unconstitutional.

    Post-September 11, NSA ‘enemies’ include us

    by James Bamford 9/8/11

    http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/62999.html

    Excerpt

    Before an American could be targeted, a judge from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court would first have to find a link to terrorism or espionage in order to issue a warrant. And installing permanent taps on all of the country’s major communications links would have been impossible.

    More than 35 years earlier, one person warned of such a possibility. On Aug. 17, 1975, as America was enjoying a lazy summer watching “Jaws” and “The Exorcist” at the movies, Idaho Sen. Frank Church took his seat on “Meet the Press.” For months, as the first chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Church had been conducting the first in-depth investigation of America’s growing intelligence community.

    When he looked into the NSA, he came away shocked by its potential for abuse. Without mentioning the agency’s name — almost forbidden at the time — he nonetheless offered an unsolicited but grave warning:

    “That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such [is] the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter,” Church said. “There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.

    “I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.” (end excerpt)

    Bamford, author of “The Puzzle Palace”, has written extensively about the NSA.

  12. Pentagon Profiteers Push Lobbying Assault to Grab More Taxpayer Dollars:
    Through the “Second to None” campaign, top Pentagon contractors are waging a sophisticated public relations war for the hearts and minds of Americans.
    By Nick Turse
    AlterNet
    9/2/2011
    http://www.alternet.org/story/152292/pentagon_profiteers_push_lobbying_assault_to_grab_more_taxpayer_dollars/

    Excerpt:
    Fearful of possible defense spending cuts after a decade of unrestrained Pentagon budgets, an association representing the world’s largest defense contractors recently launched a public relations campaign to combat “forces in Congress and the [Obama] administration” that may curb purchases of weapons systems and other high-priced military gear. Dubbed “Second to None,” the industry effort whitewashes history in an attempt to deceive the public into taking action against a deficit-fighting decrease in military spending.

    “Some extreme voices are calling for massive cuts to our national security and aerospace spending that would devastate our military, weaken our economy, and force us to cede global leadership in a time of increasing threats,” reads a breathless explanation on the group’s website. “Even as we balance budgets, the United States must do what it takes to remain Second to None.”

    In a recent article on Second to None for the Huffington Post, however, Dan Froomkin explains that “the U.S. spends more on defense than the next 17 top-spending countries combined, according to figures compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.” He goes on to quote long-time Pentagon watcher Winslow Wheeler who told him, “The rhetoric and hysteria about these levels [of budget cuts], compared to what they are, is really quite stunning.”

    A product of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA)– a coalition of more than 300 defense and aerospace firms — Second to None predicts dire consequences for “our troops, our technological future and our economic stability,” if the Pentagon’s budget is substantively decreased and calls on the public to take action by sending letters to President Obama and members of Congress in protest. Engineered to appeal to the broadest base possible, the form letter offered by Second to None warns that cuts to Department of Defense funding will endanger troops in the field and also leave the United States with only two options when faced with “growing threats” – ignore them or send in ground troops. “Predator drones, cruise missiles, air superior aircraft and spy satellites are all the technologies that allow us to deal with modern threats without committing ourselves to another Iraq that nobody wants and America cannot afford,” reads Second to None’s template.

  15. From the Project on Government Oversight:

    POGO Study: Contractors Costing Government Twice as Much as In-House Workforce
    By DANA LIEBELSON
    9/13/2011
    http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2011/09/by-dana-liebelson-the-us-governments-increasing-reliance-on-contractors-to-do-work-traditionally-done-by-federal-empl.html

    Excerpt:
    The U.S. government’s increasing reliance on contractors to do work traditionally done by federal employees is fueled by the belief that private industry can deliver services at a lower cost than in-house staff.

    But a first-of-its-kind study released today by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) busts that myth by showing that using contractors to perform services actually increases costs to taxpayers.

    POGO’s new report is the first to compare the rate that contractors bill the federal government to the salaries and benefits of comparable federal employees. The study found that while federal government salaries are higher than private sector salaries, contractor billing rates average 83 percent more than what it would cost to do the work in-house.

    The study comes at a crucial time, considering that Congress’ special “Super Committee” is looking for ways to cut $1.5 trillion from the federal deficit.

    “We’re wasting tens of billions of dollars on a belief that it’s cheaper to have contractors doing the work, without any hard evidence. The government should operate on evidence, not belief” said Paul Chassy, a POGO Investigator.

    POGO’s study compared 35 federal job classifications, covering more than 550 service activities. The occupations included everything from auditing and law enforcement to food inspection. The results surprised even POGO investigators, who for years had tracked a dramatic increase in the amount the government spends on contracts—from $200 billion in 2000 to well over $500 billion in 2011.

    In 33 of the 35 job classifications POGO looked at, the average contractor billing rate was significantly steeper than the average compensation for federal employees. The two jobs where it was more cost-effective to hire contractors were groundskeeper and medical records technician. So when the White House needs its lawn mowed, it shouldn’t hire in-house. Still, in every other case, it was cheaper for the government do the job itself.

    In some occupations, the difference in price was so dramatic, any coupon-clipping soccer mom could easily have seen the government was getting ripped off. When the government hired a claims examiner for example, it paid the contractor nearly five times more than if it had gone with a federal employee.

    “This is absolutely something taxpayers should be worried about. The government needs to be very careful about outsourcing work, especially work that is inherently governmental. It also costs so much more to privately contract,” says Janine Wedel, a professor at George Mason University who specializes in the privatization of public policy and corruption.

    POGO has expressed concern that the federal government routinely enters long-term contracts—as long as 10 years in some cases. The POGO report points to a 2009 Federal Times article where 16 intelligence agencies urged Congress to remove caps on staffing at intelligence agencies. Because of these federal employee ceilings, the agencies had no choice but to hire contractors as semi-permanent staff, which most likely results in a higher bill for taxpayers.

    “How can a government that spends $500 billion a year on private contractors not be able to answer the question of whether or not they’re saving money? Every private enterprise that I know of would be able to answer that question” Chassy said.

    POGO’s investigation found that the federal government is failing taxpayers in two key ways: first, the government is doing a poor job of obtaining genuine market prices, and therefore it is missing the savings that come with outsourcing services. Secondly, the government is failing to determine how much money it saves or wastes by hiring contractors because it simply has no system to do so (the exceptions are the OMB’s A-76 process, which oversees competition between federal employees and the private sector on a small scale, and the Department of Defense’s memorandum comparing the costs of service contracts.)

    With these problems in mind, the report provides several solutions for stopping waste and salvaging taxpayer dollars. The report also highlights government actions that appear to be solutions—but actually contribute to the problem.

    In regards to the latter, President Obama played the part of the Christmas Grinch last December, by signing into law a two-year freeze on federal employee salaries. Although this move was intended to save the government money (about $2 billion during fiscal 2011), policymakers failed to mandate a freeze on service contract awards or on service contractor billings rates, which can increase annually. The result of these kinds of pay freezes, according to the report, is that the gap between federal and contractor employee costs actually grows, increasing the cost to the government and taxpayers.

  16. Otteray Scribe:

    Building inspectors do Ok. Choose another line of work that pays more then.

    By the way many inspections are handled by independent 3rd parties. Some are good and some are not so good.

    Just like everything else in life. It is a choice, you can do the research and find out before you jump in. I bought some gold a few years ago and went with old coins, should have gone with the bullion coins from the mint. I did not look into it properly and while I didnt lose any money I could have made more had I bought the bullion coins.

    If you pay attention and do your homework, things usually work out. If you dont, you pay the price.

    Maybe if more builders refused to pay the bribes and recorded the inspectors asking for money or gifts and the inspectors were prosecuted we wouldnt have that going on.

    Free will, it is necessary for a free society. You cannot have other people pay for your mistakes.

    This is all real simple stuff, I am surprised you dont get it.

  17. Overpaid in D.C.
    —By Kevin DrumMother Jones
    Tue Sep. 13, 2011
    http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/09/overpaid-dc

    So how about those overpaid government workers? We should probably just can the whole unionized lot of them and contract out their jobs to the lean-n-mean private sector. That’d save the taxpayers some serious dough, wouldn’t it?

    Maybe not. There’s a reason that private contractors are called Beltway Bandits, after all. The Project on Government Oversight took a look at how much private contracting really costs once you look at actual billing rates, and the private sector didn’t come out looking too good:

    The result of POGO’s analysis was shocking. In 94 percent (33 of the 35) of the occupational series POGO analyzed, the average annual contractor billing rate was much more than the average annual full compensation for federal employees: on average, contractors may be billing the government approximately 1.83 times what the government pays federal employees to perform similar work. When the average annual contractor billing rates were compared with the average annual full compensation paid to private sector employees in the open market, POGO found that in all occupational classifications studied, the contractor billing rates were, on average, more than twice the costs incurred by private sector employers for the same services.

    The most egregious example of an outsourced occupational classification that resulted in excessive costs rather than cost savings is claims assistance and examining—administrative support positions that involve examining, reviewing, developing, adjusting, reconsidering, or recommending authorization of claims by or against the federal government. To provide these services, on average, federal employees are fully compensated at $57,292 per year, private sector employees are fully compensated at $75,637 per year, and the average annual contractor billing rate is $276,598 per year.

    $276,000 per year! Nice work if you can get it. Federal labor unions might be tough bargainers, but they’re pikers compared to the suits on mahogany row. Those are the guys who really know how to work the system. If you’re on the lookout for overpaid chair warmers with cushy jobs, that’s your first stop.

  18. Roco,

    “Now whose fault is that? Are you implying that people should be forced to do a job for a particular wage?”

    Ask Dana Priest if she was implying that.

    *****

    “Why is that? Is this article saying government workers arent as good?”

    Do you really need me to tell you what the article was saying?

  19. But, but, but….

    Roco, are you endorsing giving those bad old government building inspectors some real enforcement teeth? And pay them enough (with taxpayer monies) that they are not tempted to let their palms be greased?

  20. Otteray Scribe:

    Sounds like the guy is a slime ball. My question is why didnt someone at the universities facility management department vet this company?

    I would bet there were indications that this guy was not an honest operator from the beginning.

    But it is a good idea. And there are thousands of builders who would have done a good job and charged a fair price.

    If the university had been smart they could have gotten the building built for free or for a small outlay by giving the builder/investor a free 30 year lease on the land and any profits made from the rentals.

    Why is it that you take one example of a bad actor and paint all builders with the same broad brush? I thought you needed a larger sample.

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