Hey, here's an idea, instead of reducing military funding for technology upgrades and the number of troops, how about we cut out a ton of civilian positions instead? Oh right, we can't! Why is that? Because you can't fire DoD civilians without a mountain of paperwork thanks to all-powerful (or nearly so) public sector unions. Thanks JFK, thanks. It's easy to boot people out of the military, just wait until their enlistment is up in a couple of years at the worst.
DoD civilians have a tendency to stick around until they die, or FINALLY retire, and their paychecks are many times larger than their military equivalents. Wouldn't it make more sense to just keep active duty personnel than to pay someone twice as much as a civilian? Not only would it cost less, but it would prevent a stagnation of ideas due to people who have been there for 30+ years refusing to change their ways regardless how well they work (or don't work).
DoD Budget "Casualties"
The Washington Times doesn't even mention why until the very end of the article, where people are paying less attention. That should have been one of the first sentences, but we wouldn't want to anger those unions now would we?
It would help things if they made it easier to fire deadwood. My first command, we had a civilian in the calibration shop-- he'd been sent in with the idea that he'd be able to supplement the Navy guys and form a backbone for the shop.
ReplyDeleteThis guy, with a bunch of engineering degrees, "failed" the second level of calibration training. I, a ranch kid with no college, a public school education, switching between day and night shift depending on when uniform inspections were, passed it with great grades. (He threw it. Totally.)
So we had a guy getting more in a month than I made in six, take-home pay, who could only do physical calibration. That's the stuff we're allowed to train guys to do on site.
He calibrated torque wrenches and pressure gages for about an hour a day, then sat reading his newspaper.
I was there two years. A year and a half after I left, I got word that he'd finally been fired... because he consistently left for lunch a half-hour early, came back late, and left for the day early, relative to his time card. They got photographic proof for about six months. (thou shalt not piss off thy co-workers)
Still got to retire, didn't have to pay any fines or anything, just couldn't get several times the pay of an E-3 doing more than that job while working an hour or two a day. (Didn't even help with "cleaning quarters"-- the reason Navy doesn't usually need janitors.)