DoD procurement insourcing directive & minority owned/ small businesses

[alizabeth]

I am a college student and I recently found out that my dad's company will be going out of business due to the DoD procurement insourcing directive. I was wondering if anyone out there knows how to estimate how many minority owned and small businesses will go out of business as a result of the new procurement DoD insourcing directive?

 

[VaYank5150]

I am a college student and I recently found out that my dad's company will be going out of business due to the DoD procurement insourcing directive. I was wondering if anyone out there knows how to estimate how many minority owned and small businesses will go out of business as a result of the new procurement DoD insourcing directive?

Got a link to said directive?

 

[alizabeth]

I have been researching this insourcing plan ever since I heard about it. If you are interested, I have some official documentation that I can email you. In general, the goal of the policy is to take 30,000 jobs of the private sector (mostly small businesses) and turn them into government employment. Many small and minority business jobs have already gone away.

This year alone, the government has brought in 7,000 private sector jobs and they are pushing on full speed ahead with the plan to insource 30,000 more jobs the remainder of this year and next.

The government has changed the terms: Originally, the rules were that the private sector could not be inherently governmental jobs, now the private sector cannot do anything termed as “crucial.” We just got a semi definite definition of what inherently governmental is. There is NOTHING to define what crucial is. All in all, it appears that the government is trying to rid itself of what makes the economy survive, small businesses and private sector contractors.

The directive also says that is it is in place to save the government money. Really they are spending more money to insource these jobs than they would be to just leave them alone. If you think about it, with small businesses out there, you have more people paying taxes. When you take the small businesses away, you have less people paying taxes, which means less money being brought into the government and how do they normally “fix” that problem: raise the taxes for everyone else.

All in all, when it is first presented, it may tickle the ear and sound good, but when you get down to the heart of the subject, it is causing more hurt and problems.

 

[Tech_Esq]

This is part of Obama's stated effort to grow government and remove the "inefficiencies of the private sector" and get more control over what happens in government. See Blackwater.

Minority owned small businesses are just so much collateral damage.

 

[alizabeth]

That is exactly what I am against: Just looking at the small businesses as a collateral. It is ridiculous that the government thinks that they can do whatever they want at ANY expense.

 

[alizabeth]

A Summary of the video: Federal Insourcing: No Taxpayer Savings, Private Sector Damage
John Palatiello- President of Business Coalition for Fair Competition
Angela Stiles- head of OFPP in OMB, currently a partner in private sector lawfirm
James Shirk- economist- studies cost differences in privatization and federal government
- 40- 50% of contracts have always been won by the government
- To goal should be monopoly vs. competition. Currently it is an issue of number of government employees rather than monopolies vs. competition.
John Palatiello-
• Context: articles last Tuesday (9/14/2010) gave conflicting ideas:
o Washington Post- Castro brothers are going to cut government jobs and turn them over to private sector workers to do because it will be more beneficial As Cuba gives capitalism a try, experts ponder future
o Group of Congressmen said that security guards must be federal employees
o Said that he never thought that he would see the day when Cuba would be going in the direction of free enterprise and the United States was going in the direction of more and bigger government control
• Federal Government – Executive branch only- has 1.9 million employees
o 850,000+ are a commercial nature/ type position i.e.- private sector type work that is being done by government employees
o The majority of these 850,000+ jobs have not been studied as to whether they are subject to being outsourced or being competed for.
• Freedom for Government Competition Act- regulates competition/ looks at government activities and determines whether or not is can/should be competed for by strictly private sector companies or between government employees and private sector contractors.
• 30% of funds are saved by competition. $27 billion can be saved by competition. Results in more efficient work.
• $47 billion can be saved by making it more efficient.
• Average cost per government employees for salary, benefits, etc…. $4.27 million.
• When only the government is growing and the private sector is shrinking, you are creating problems for future generations.
• The government is too big which is causing the biggest problem for us.
• Even Secretary Gates acknowledges the fact that insourcing is not saving money, why is the government continuing to insource jobs.
• Small business impact from insourcing= JOB KILLER
o Government is enacting insourcing to then study it rather than studying insourcing and then deciding whether or not put it in action.
• Legislative Moratorium? Possible but not sure yet.

Angela Stiles-
• We need to look at this in a logical way.
• Ask questions:
o Should we be spending the money/ Is this a necessary thing or program to have in place?
o If yes, what is the best way to achieve the desired result? (most cost effective and most reliable)
• Only after these questions have been asked, can you decide how and where this money should be spent.
• The term “inherently governmental” is NOT important.
• Combination!!!!= government employees and private sector contractors working together saves money. But you have to find a good/suitable combination.
• Sometimes the best people qualified for the job are in both the private sector as well as government employees.
• We, as a whole, have a hard time thinking outside the box, at the bigger picture: There can be a combination.
• Goal: Find the best people by competition to get the job done in a most cost effective and reliable manner.

James Shirk-
• Reason: We have a problem in government- We don’t know how to properly pay employees.
• The federal agencies managers are not concerned with cost effectiveness for the taxpayers.
• Federal employees earn more than private sector employees.
o Ex) staff assistant
 $52,000- $67,000 per year = GS-9 entry level position
 $81,000 per year= GS-11 position
 This is only the salary portion….not including benefits, 401k plan, medical benefits, paid holidays, etc.
 Multiply this amount by thousands of other employees who make even more than this.
• It is not just the economists who see that the government employees are making more than private sector employees! News reporters as well as other people are noticing this trend of paying federal employees more than private sector employees.
• Yes, in most cases the government does have more qualified people, as far as education goes, to do the jobs, but that does not mean that they should get this much of a pay increase compared to the private sector arena.
• When looked at with the “naked eye,” the government is paid 50+% more than the private sector, but when the federal workers and the private sectors are put on the same level as far as judging the state/county they live in, education levels, etc, the federal government employee is still paid 22% more than the private sector employee. (that is NOT including benefits)
• Taxpayers pay for the federal government employees to have BOTH a 401k plan as well as defined benefit pension. The private sector, however, only gets one or the other.
• Private Sector Holidays (after 4-5 yrs):
o 13-16 paid vacation per year
o 9 days sick leave per year
• Government Employees Holiday (after 3 yrs):
o 20 days paid vacation per year
o ALL 10 federal holidays
o 13 days paid sick leave per year
o In addition to these days, whatever days they have not used at the end of the year, they will roll over to the next year.
 Ex.) You use only 10 days vacation and 4 sick days that year, the next you will have 30 days vacation and 22 sick days the next year.
• $47 billion per year could be saved if federal employees were paid as private sector employees are.
• Yes, to save money, the government could cut some benefits, but it would be far more beneficial to insource jobs that are not necessary for the government employees to do.

From each panelist, the common consensus was that:
Taxpayers pay more!!!
There MUST be competition!!!!!
Fair and Open Competition!
myheritage.org/media/?bcpid=18808669001&bclid=5304305001&bctid=613656982001]MyHeritage.org: Media Center

 

[William Joyce]