You do understand we are "up" in numbers with Federal employees due to the cutback in contractors, right? It's been a seesaw for years. First, it was that hiring contractors would save money, then it was, no, Fed employees would save money. That is the main reason that Fed employee numbers have increased, not that there are more people overall doing the same job, just not as many contractors as a few years ago. I have seen it go up and down over the last 20 years. You have to look at all sides, not just the one that shows more Fed employees. A lot of the jobs currently getting done under the "shutdown/slimdown" are being done by contractors who also will soon run out of money. The contracts are usually only paid for a month at a time, even if they are "fully funded". Contractors do not work if there is no money to bill against.
And, contractors and government both are "greening" which means we're losing tremendous amounts of knowledge, experience, etc. I've seen how it impacts where we work, plus, in general, the younger, greener, cheaper employees have a very different work ethic overall than older ones do. It does impact big time.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for slimming down Gov. I think it's too big, but the way to fix it is not to just randomly chop. This shutdown/slimdown isn't really showing the true impact. It's very selective. Does everyone know that the during last shutdown that monuments weren't blocked off? The goal this time is to inflict pain to gain political points. It's not working.
