HEADLINE VS. REALITY
May 07, 2009
– Comments (8)
HEADLINE
Pentagon to create 20,000 jobs to manage arms buys
REALITY:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama's Defense Department plans to create 20,000 new government jobs to help revise how it buys more than $100 billion of weapons each year, the Pentagon's No. 2 official told Congress.
The Pentagon also plans to tie contract fees more closely to performance and make deals spanning two years, or more, only when "real, substantial" savings result to taxpayers, Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn told the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee on Wednesday.
Lynn said the planned jobs growth would take place over the next five years. Included would be more than 9,000 positions at two Pentagon agencies that audit and manage contracts for everything from bullets, to bombs, to bread rolls.
The remaining 11,000 new hires would come from the conversion to federal civilian slots of jobs that had been outsourced to contractors.
"This unprecedented, five-year planned workforce initiative will result in a properly sized, well-trained, capable and ethical workforce," he said.
Lynn and Shay Assad, acting deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition, said bringing more work in-house would cost less than relying on contractors over the long run.
The current workforce is made up of 127,000 government employees and 52,000 contractors for a total of 179,000, said Chris Isleib, a Pentagon spokesman.
"We are going to 147,000 and 41,000 contractors for a new total integrated workforce of 188,000," he said in an emailed reply to Reuters.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090506/pl_nm/us_arms_pentagon
hmmmm. Add 20,000 and subtract 11,000 = 9,000 over 5 years.........now that is a BIG stimulous.
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