At a time when our country’s unemployment rate hovers near 10 percent and Congress has to pass legislation to keep cops, firefighters and teachers employed, the Senate Appropriations Committee has penned a bill that includes language that could put thousands of people out of work and weaken local tax bases.
Section 741 of the Senate’s version of the 2011 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act (S. 3677) would require all government agencies to arbitrarily insource work currently being performed by contractors, even though current law and recent OMB guidance says the work is perfectly suitable for private-sector performance. In a letter to senators, PSC President and CEO Stan Soloway outlined the impact of such arbitrary insourcing actions have already had at the Defense Department:
“A number of DoD insourcing actions have already put contractor employees out of work because their jobs were physically moved to different locations, closed off by federal hiring requirements that prevent incumbent employees from continuing to perform the work, or both. It is illogical to implement this misguided policy, which only serves to set back economic recovery.”
And don’t forget that Defense Sec. Robert Gates said on Aug. 9 that DoD’s insourcing actions have not achieved the savings promised. What’s more, the Senate’s new, government-wide provision to insource ignores the contributions that private companies provide to their government customers. Soloway wrote:
“Private-sector companies working on federal government solutions not only employ hundreds of thousands of constituents in every state but also allow agencies to harness the latest innovations, tap vital market expertise, and provide government with the flexibility to rapidly address emerging mission requirements without assuming the long-term costs associated with hiring a permanent workforce.”
Given the potential long-term costs to taxpayers at a time when even the Defense Department is making drastic cuts, it is incongruous that legislation such as Section 741 of S. 3667 would mandate public-sector employment growth at the expense of the private sector and the taxpayer without rigorous analysis.
