Growing the Government By Stealth

Project 21 member Cherylyn Harley LeBon has a featured commentary now posted on the Daily Caller web site about largely unnoticed but vigorous efforts by the Obama Administration to grow the size of the federal government by turning private contractors into federal employees.

“Insourcing” is the process of requiring that jobs done by private-sector employees be federalized.  This is a boon to organized labor and a further strain on taxpayers.

Cherylyn writes:

[B]arely two months into his presidency, Barack Obama ordered all federal agencies to figure out how to make more private contractors into public employees. The Office of Management and Budget months later required such insourcing reviews occur “on a regular basis.”

This practice does not necessarily, as argued, provide taxpayers with more efficient service. Nor does it save money. The most obvious thing it does is increase the number of dues-paying union members. Over the past 25 years, the number of union workers in the private sector dwindled to just over ten percent. At the same time, unionization grew among government workers. Over 35 percent of government workers are now in unions.

Insourcing, at its core, is an attempt by big-government liberals to fill the coffers of organized labor at the expense of taxpayers and workers in the private sector. Over a period of time, Americans will have to pay more in taxes to pay the generous benefits and salaries of federal union workers, who will be impossible to fire regardless of their quality of work.

Cherylyn’s complete commentary can be accessed by clicking here.

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