The Obama administration has made it very publicly known of their intentions to "insource" a lot of jobs being done by contractors. Typically this is in reference to positions viewed to be "inherently governmental". And I would/will applaud this, there are clear lines that need to be drawn between what roles can or cannot be performed by contractors.
However, to then make it known that there might be hiring freezes? How can this work? There are already hundreds if not thousands of vacant positions within DHS alone. If you are going to freeze hiring, you either have to rely more heavily on contractors, or leave a giant flapping hole in the services provide the country. And doing so within the DHS space has the unfortunate risk of leaving us vulnerable to various attacks, increased crime or lack of response to a natural disaster (and with H1N1 looming…).
There's clearly no simple solution, but it has to involve common sense, maximum value for the taxpayer's dollar, and the necessary services to keep our country safe.
