"Replacing soldiers with civilians could save billions" Topic

"A federal agency has issued a report suggesting the U.S. military could save as much as $5.7 USD billion every year by replacing some forces personnel with government civilians.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) used a model which either cut or replaced about 80,000 active-duty positions with civilians.

The report, published Tuesday, claims the move would not be new to the Department of Defense (DoD) and could help the military focus on core roles.

"Transferring to civilians certain jobs currently held by military personnel could reduce costs and increase DoD's focus on war-fighting," said the report authored by Adebayo Adedeji, Principal Analyst at the CBO's National Security Division…"
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Amicalement
Armand

This is nothing new, it's been slowly happening for years. At some point in the future the only people in uniform will be actual combat troops, all others will be highly paid civilians (mostly ex-military for the moment) that only need to be paid during the deployment, still cheaper than soldiers as they don't need training, houses, medical, pensions etc.

Contractors are hired as needed, government employees are permanent and actually cost more. Yes, the models say civilian employees cost less, but the real dollars spent are more. I spent a tour as the program manager for a major training command and we went through one of these "cost savings" programs with instructors. Our personnel costs almost doubled and since Federal employment is essentially guaranteed for life, we couldn't get rid of the employees once the project was abandoned.

This is how we got Haliburton and the prison problems in Iraq.

And you've got to relearn your logistics every deployment with a new batch of civilians.
And civilians aren't subject to the Code of Service Discipline which can be an issue sometimes in a war zone.
And what about long service guys who still want to be in uniform but aren't going enough to be active combat arms? It's good to have those guys as your Bin Rats

I've had run-ins with civilians in place of military. Their goals and end states are far different from military ones. Coming home from deployment overseas, our in processing (Trying to get home to our loved ones!) was delayed because the civilians were on holiday! Our in-processing was known in advance for months, yet they took a union approve holiday. Which delayed our getting through the process faster. They were upset that we were mightly pissed at them and didn't understand why. I believe anything belonging to the military, should be manned and run by the military. Goals are the same!

Raynman wrote:

>>> I believe anything belonging to the military, should be manned and run by the military. Goals are the same!

Some in the non-union private sector could work out very well. You might be surprised to know how often sales organizations adopt military practices, perspectives and procedures with regard to planning, implementation, execution, continuous improvement and ultimately achieving and exceeding goals. "The Victors", "The Leaders Code" and "Extreme Ownership" are but a few of the better guides to business leadership that many have read and utilize the concepts on a daily basis.

I know a number of people who could fix the VA in a relatively short amount of time if they were given the authority and flexibility to do so the right way.

DM

US Army Aviation has a serious problem with civilian maintainers. Instead of the 4,000+ personnel normally with 4th CAB now deployed in Afghanistan, you have about 1,000 pilots, staff and select NCO's deployed while the bulk of the Brigade sits back at Carson painting rocks. The personnel total deployed in Afghanistan stays low for the politicians but the cost of civilian personnel is actually much higher and the actual enlisted maintainers are not getting, keeping or increasing any skills while all the aircraft are deployed and the brigade is not gaining proficiency as a combat unit, just individual pieces. I fear the actual cost of the subterfuge of allowing the official troop count in Afghanistan to remain artificially low for solely political purposes is far too high in current dollars right now for civilian maintainers and maybe unbearably high in lost aircraft and personnel when the skills eroded enlisted maintainers get those aircraft and people back following deployment.

During the last half of the Bush Administration there was talk of a civilian draft where civilians would be drafted off the streets to "serve" the private corporations involved in the war effort and elsewhere at a "bargain" pay rate.

I don't know if there was any truth to this, but the thought of it is somewhat disconcerting.

So just how does this save billions?

Since government workers make far more than a soldier.