The practice of hiring private contractors for jobs traditionally done by the U.S. Military has been an extremely costly mistake, in both blood and money. An effort to end it has been put forward by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Representative Jan Schakowsky in the house. House Bill HR 4650 and Senate Bill S 3023 are collectively known as the "Stop Outsourcing Security Act" and are intended to put a stop to this practice that wastes American tax dollars and puts American soldiers at risk.
Private contractors are far more expensive than normal U.S. soldiers. Their salaries are reportedly starting at around $100,000.00 a year doing the same jobs as U.S. soldiers making an average of $25,000 a year. It is reported that we have more private contractors in the middle east than we do soldiers, upwards of 180,000. That's about $18 billion dollars wasted, that are putting our soldiers and their mission at risk, and which could have been used for 4 times as many normal soldiers or better equipment for the soldiers we have there.
One of the advantages of a self-sufficient and mobile Army, like America had in WW2, is that when the fighting gets tough, everyone there is also a trained soldier and can pick up a weapon and fight. Private contractors are civilians, and in a fight, they become liabilities that slow everyone down and consume valuable resources because soldiers have to protect them as well as fight the enemy.
Read More:
http://www.examiner.com/x-45752-Macomb-County-Progressive-Examiner~y2010m4d24-Stop-Outsourcing-Our-Securty