Name:   Talullahhound - Subject:   Wix Date:   7/16/2017 12:39:27 PM

See, you are out of touch again.  Under Clinton/Gore's "reinventing government", government jobs were slashed and necessitated the hiring of contract support to accomplish the mission. The misguided reason was that contractors could be hired for a particular time that skill set was needed and then terminated when that part was done.  This was to save the taxpayers for overhead and benefits.  What they failled to understand is that contractors do not work for less, and they still charge for overhead and benefits.  It was really nothing more than changing of the color of the money spent, rather than the amount of money spent,    Then with the build up of Iraq, a lot of the military who worked in civilian offices, were removed from offices and put back into more traditional assignments to deal with cutbacks in the miliary and the plus ups in troops deployed.

What you don't seem to grasp, is that there isn't a lot of "us" versus "them" between government workers and the contractor support.  My sister has her own company as a support contractor and sits in the same offices with and attends the same meetings with the government people.  It's not because they can't do their jobs, but rather that she provides a skill for a period of time they need that particular skill.  She has worked in the same organization for the past 5 years.

I worked with support contractors for many years and there wasn't any animosity.  The only rub that usually comes is that technically they can't officially represent the government, which is at times inconvenient, because sometimes their piece of the puzzle makes them the most knowledgeable on a given subject. 

I can't speak for the rest of the government and how it works, but in DoD, you have a cooperative environment.  As Hodja points out, in DoD you have a mission and if it fails, people die.