No other military pays three times more for a contractor to assist each of its soldiers.
About 650,000 civilian contractors provide services to our military. These are not the workers building ships and aircraft. Instead, service contractors perform everyday tasks (e.g., maintain computers, deliver supplies, train the troops, etc.)
Service contractors are employed not as individuals but under massive contracts labelled communications or logistic support or some such. The Pentagon doesn’t know who the individuals are, let alone how to audit performance or value added. These contracts total about $270 billion, a quarter of the entire Defense budget.
Each service contractor annually costs about $430,000. Yes, you read correctly. Half a million civilians are employed at almost half a million dollars each to support the daily tasks of our soldiers and sailors. Not even Lewis Carroll could concoct a believable fable using those gargantuan real-world numbers.
Practically, what does this mean? Imagine applying this service to a frontline platoon of forty. Every single soldier is assisted by a contractor who provides his meals, assembles his rifle, ensures his radio comms, trains him, cleans his equipment after use, refurbishes all gear, and recommends upgrades. The service contractor is also stalwart. As Afghanistan proved, he will go into combat and suffer casualties equal to the platoon. In return, the Pentagon pays the service contractor three times more than the soldier, sailor, or airman.
Triple the cost is incurred because the service contractor works for a mega corporation that has layers of well-paid executives, all requiring comfortable overhead and profit. On the plus side, the corporation will respond flexibly when money is flush. Since 1980, Congress has cut the active-duty force by 33%. But crises did not cease. So Congress responded at the last minute to, for example, Iran seizing our embassy, Iraq invading Kuwait, and 9/11. The military services took the suddenly-available cash and turned to corporations for help.
After each crisis subsided, reliance on service contractors and signed contracts remained and even grew. Since 1980, the number of service contractors has increased from 130,000 to 650,000. Because Congress refuses to pass any long-term budget for the military, there is no reliability. So, the military responds by reaching out to more service contractors. Once brought on board, naturally every contractor tries to avoid being let go. With can-do spirit, the contractor re-invents himself to be useful to the military unit that hired him or her in the first place.
Remember: No service contractor is hired via an individual contract. Instead, contracts are a mish-mash, a conglomeration of tasks beginning with an individual with a skill who attaches himself to a small contractor that attaches to a mega corporation with an existing sprawling contract. The new service talent is appreciated by the military supervisor; there is always another job to be done.
The result is that the Pentagon pays a civilian contractor $430,000 to do the job of a military service member costing $134,000 or a Defense employee costing $142,000. Where does responsibility lie to cut back on these service contracts, given that our deficit spending is unsustainable?
