first americans have a right to know that the money washington takes from them is well spent and second americans deserve an efficient effective government that works for them our duty on the oversight and government reform committee is to protect these rights our solemn responsibility is to hold government accountable t taxpayers because taxpayers have a right to know what they get from their government we will work tirelessly in partnership with citizen watchdogs to deliver the facts to the american people and bring genuine reform to the federal bureaucracy this is the mission of the oversight and government reform move into my opening statement last december the white house's deficit commission outlined a plan of action to address our nation's fiscal woes included in the report was a recommendation to reduce the size of the federal workforce by two hundred thousand recently the house budget resolution adopted a similar policy in assuming a ten percent reductionhhvia attritionhhin the size of the federal workforce white house officials have repeatedly stated that they would implement many of the commission's ideas but they did not incorporate a federal workforce reduction proposal into the president's february budget release or his recentlyissued deficit reduction plan in fact the president's budget while acknowledging that the federal workforce has actually grown by three hundred and twenty five thousand since president  took office requests an additional fifteen thousand new federal workers for fiscal year two thousand and twelve the size of the federal workforce now stands at over two point one million the largest federal workforce in modern history at the same time our economy has lost over four million private sector jobs and the unemployment rate hovers around nine percent according to the office of personnel management the average pay and benefits of a federal employee in two thousand and ten was one hundred and one thousand seven hundred and fifty one dollars a rate of compensation the nation can no longer afford the members of this subcommittee appreciate our talented federal workforce and the critically essential services it provides however the current size of the federal workforce is fiscally unsustainable congress has an obligation to consider all policy reforms that halt the sprawl of government and force agency heads to make government more efficient several republican members have offered bills to shrink the size of the federal workforce i myself have introduced h r eight hundred and twenty one the zero based budget act eleven this legislation would require all departments and agencies in the federal government to provide a funding justification each year as well as a summary of their costeffectiveness and efficiency today's witnesses include two distinguished members of congress representative l and representative marino who have both introduced legislation that would institute tough measures to halt government growth and produce a smaller leaner federal workforce at a time when our economy is in a recession and budget deficits are at staggering record levels taxpayers can no longer be asked to foot the bill for a bloated federal workforce this hearing presents an opportunity for lawmakers on this committee to hear important testimony on how best to rightsize the federal workforce i thank the witnesses for appearing here today and i look forward to their testimony federal workers we have the traditional federal employees who are the target of this hearing and then we have a group called private contractors now in common parlance people think of contractors as companies but in this united states government contractors are people so rather than hiring under the bush administration employees they simply hired contractors now not only do we have the largest number of federal employees two point five million people but if you look at the number of folks that we have added to government the government payroll by the bush administration it comes not to two point five million but to ten point five million contractors people who are working under government contract instead of employees so what we are doing in this hearing is we are ignoring eighty percent of the cost we are completely ignoring the contractor side of this equation ten point five million people and we are instead focusing on two point five million federal employees it strains the limits of credibility to ignore eighty percent of our costs and instead to point the finger of blame on federal employees it continues to mystify me in the midst of this recession that while we all are in agreement that it was the folks on wall street who caused this mess we don't have hearings on wall street up here the finger of blame has gone around and around and where does it fall it falls on federal employees it falls on teachers it falls on firefighters it falls on police officers it falls on their right to bargain over terms and conditions of employment it is obscene that we are focusing today on the two point five million employees of the federal government while we are completely ignoring the ten five million contractors and grantees that work for this government bear in mind that there is great need to reduce the costs within our government there is no question about it we have to reduce spending but you have to ask whether we are really serious about it when we choose to ignore eighty percent of the cost is not a word in here about reducing the number of contractors i have traveled to iraq and afghanistan many many times fourteen times i think in iraq i have seen the troop levels go down from one hundred and seventy thousand to forty five zero today but i still see one hundred thousand contractors in iraq and when you compare what an army private or a private first class for the united states marine corps is making per month with what the private contractor costs or if you compare what the state department employees are making overseas compared to what these private contractors are making it is astounding it is really astounding so if we are serious about reducing costs then we need to look at the contracting community the ten point five million people out there that are on the government payroll just because president bush decided to hire them as private contractors instead of federal employees it doesn't mean the cost isn't there in fact think about this if we are seeking to reduce costs if you force a federal employee out they are going out and they are going to collect their pension and probably get health care benefits if you cut a contractor lose that is all savings that is all savings so why aren't we looking at that this will be a great hearing i have a lot of issa no no we have two congressional colleagues here and they both have business backgrounds congress marino like you i spent decades on the factory floor  one thing we understand in the private sector and i think you are going to hear it in their testimony and in any q and a we understand in the private sector that you are probably absolutely right on some portion of what you just said two million people ten point five million full or parttime contractors all or part we are not debating that they all fall under this committee's jurisdiction the real question is how are we getting the best value and the one thing i believe that this committee  seen in hearing after hearing after hearing and we will continue to see until we make real fundamental change is there is no cost accounting now in the previous time under president bush i sat on this committee and other committees and rightfully so i saw them not do cost accounting they simply hired a bunch of people to get us through the early days of the war and on this side of the aisle and on your side of the aisle we started complaining that well where is the cost justification for this and that why does it cost hundreds of dollars a gallon to bring a gallon of fuel out to the combat and into the line the real question is not is there waste in government we exist because there is a tremendous amount of waste and we have done very little to deal with it now as we look at attrition or changes in the federal workforce including an end to arbitrary insourcing which is what has been happening under the bush administration arbitrary insourcing they tap contractors on the shoulder tell them their contract is going to be ending and we say we will give you a pay raise if you come work for us now felony stupid behavior for anyone to do and we have business people here who will explain exactly how stupid it is to arbitrarily pay more than you need to what this committee needs to do and mister lynch i want to be very much in partnership with you on this committee we need to costbenefit both outsourced and  insourced costs we need to move this government toward making a genuine decision about what makes longterm and shortterm sense and to do the kind of analysis additionally and chairman ross i think did a very good job in his opening statement we need to go to a system in which we justify the individual pay of individual members of the federal workforce dynamically understanding that some people in the federal workforce are underpaid and their jobs go unfilled and it is difficult we have seen this before some their jobs become less valuable but the scale of the system has no flexibility even for new hiring we need to change that the private sector understands that supply and demand varies that what you have to pay to hire a software programming in one thousand nine hundred and ninety nine in silicon valley is very different than two thousand and eleven it was a radical change between you hired people from anywhere and stole them from your competitors to oh there was an abundance that abundance disappears the price goes up i look forward to this committee having an honest dialogue not about what was wrong in outsourcing under the bush administration or wrong necessarily in insourcing under this administration we have an obligation to get it right to figure out how sensible government accounting can in fact put using your numbers twelve point five million full or parttime jobs to better use at better value for the american people i believe this is a good start today i believe we have the right witnesses to help us set the tone for why it is not about how many workers we have inhouse or how many contractors we have outhouse the question is are we getting our best value and until we have a system that we can all be confident on a regular and constant basis makes those decisions those if you will dynamic scoring so that we get the best value we are not going to rightsize the federal workforce inhouse or get the best value from our contractors out of the house i look forward to working with this entire committee this is the most legitimately bipartisan issue we will have on this but at a time when congress is looking for ways to cut spending i certainly appreciate that everything should be on the table however i believe that federal employment in particular has gotten more scrutiny from the majority than it deserves while i agree that serious changes must be made to improve our financial footing i disagree with the viewpoint that federal employees should shoulder a disproportionate amount of that burden as i have mentioned previously before this committee over the past several months i have been meeting with federal workers who are rightly dismayed that their jobs and benefits are being used as a political football on capitol hill federal employees saw and eleven pay raises blocked by the recently enacted year pay freeze they are deeply concerned with the daily barrage of news about the possibility of further congressional action affecting their benefits my office has been deluged with inquiries from federal workers and their families concerned about agency furloughs and reductions in force wondering how they will keep paying their mortgages and feeding their children if their paychecks are suddenly stopped these are the same employees that on this side of the aisle took a five percent cut and probably will not get another pay raise for the next four years but at the pay and again their wages are being frozen and they are not making the money that the rich folks are making give me a break despite assertions to the contrary the federal workforce has decrease mister lynch stated on this point i would like to be very clear cutting the federal workforce is not a magic solution to our financial troubles cutting the federal workforce does not d for taxpayer services for that reason proposed indiscriminate cuts stand to have two effects one increasing the more costly contractor workforce or two reducing the efficiency an effectiveness of the services delivered to taxpayers recently in response to representative lummis proposed legislation max stier the ceo of the nonpartisan partnership for public service had these simple words to stay history has shown that governmentwide hiring freezes result in neither smaller nor more effective government indeed downsizing the federal workforce without strategic workforce planning will result in skill gaps and increased reliance on contractors and ultimately a government that is less efficient and effective than the american people deserve none of the proposals we will consider today have adequately addressed mister stier concerns over blanket cuts so i do look forward to the hearing today i look forward to hearing our witnesses and i agree with the chairman of the full committee mister issa this is a problem that should have bipartisan solutions these are issues that affect the very people that we work with every day the very people that we go back to our offices and see in the next hour or so the ones that get the early bus the ones that work hard and give their blood their sweat their tears their compassion to us americans and i do want us to stop beating up on our public employees because they subcommittee i want to assure the ranking member of the full committee of my deep regard for public employees i was the state treasurer in my state i had a loyal hardworking workforce that contributed mightily to converting our portfolios of savings from six dollars billion to over eight dollars billion during my eight years as state treasure they are hardworking dedicated employees and i see similar skills abilities and dedication every day here in the federal government i am proud of public workers i am proud to be a public worker  my bill is not designed as an attack or an indictment of their skills it is recognition of where we are in two thousand and eleven with regard to the size of our federal government and what we need to do to address the impending unsustainable shortfalls our debts our deficits if we wiped out every single federal agency that is not interest on the debt and an entitlement program mandatory spending we still would not have enough money collected in revenues to cover the expenditures of this country it is going to take every single program every single person every single branch of government every entitlement every mandatory spending program in order to solve the problems we have today so this is a small component of the problem and i bring it to you because of my experience in wyoming state government wyoming has the smallest population in the nation we also have per capita the largest cadre of state local and county government workers now in order to maintain a level of service but nevertheless adjust to wyoming's boom and bust economy since our economy really is just entirely based on minerals the revenues of the state of wyoming go up and down as mineral production and mineral prices go up and down so i have learned to adjust to a growing government and a declining government over the course of my political life as a wyoming legislator as director of  state government agency and then as state treasurer among the tools that we believe work well is the opportunity to up and downsize the state workforce  fifty seven does reduce the federal workforce by attrition under my bill the federal government could hire one employee for every two that retire or separate for whatever reason so nobody loses their job nobody loses their hire one employee for every two that retire or separate this notion of attrition has been replicated by the house republican budget resolution which assumes a more aggressive three to one replacement  rate it was also proposed as has been pointed out by the president's deficit commission which called for a less aggressive three to two replacement rate and i prefer attrition to rigid firing or hiring freezes i don't just want smaller government i want a more efficient and responsive government now let me give you some of the details of my bill i did decide to exempt the department of defense homeland security and veterans affairs from the new attrition policy i also included a general national security waiver of the bill's hiring limitations and i did so to acknowledge the preeminen importance of national security our constitutional obligations versus our statutory obligations working with republican staff on the house budget committee we estimate the federal workforce reduction act would save something in the ballpark of thirty five dollars billion over ten years the more aggressive attrition policy in the house republican budget combined with a federal pay freeze would save two hundred and forty eight dollars billion over ten years am on the appropriations committee and we talk repeatedly about how we are having to cut programs and democrats and republicans on the committee alike are saying but we need to know that when we cut programs we not just retaining middle and higher administrative positions we need to know that the people who are actually doing the work in the bowels of government those workers who are less highly paid are the ones who are retained and not just the midmanagers and higher level managers in the federal government who are highly compensated one closing comment m chairman in my home state of wyoming if you look at the pay between federal employees state employees county employees the federal government is compensating their employees by far by far more than state employees and other government workers so what we are seeing here is an opportunity to return some normalcy as we downsize the federal government in order to save our country and in doing so not inflict pain on people by rifs and other policies that really do hurt a family's wellbeing mister chairman i again thank you so much for the opportunity to testify before you today mister ross thank you misess lummis i now recognize the distinguished gentleman from the commonwealth of pennsylvania mister marino chairman ross ranking member lynch and members of the subcommittee thank you for holding this hearing today and giving me the opportunity to testify and i also want to pay my respects to chairman issa thank you our nation is more than fourteen  two cents for every dollar we spend our current fiscal course is unsustainable and disastrous the american people have sent a clear message to washington and the american people deserve more we must cut spending reduce the size and scope of the government and keep taxes low to grow the economy and create jobs earlier this month i introduced h r one thousand seven hundred and seventy nine the federal hiring freeze act of two thousand and eleven because the time for talk has ended and the time for action is now we cannot continue down this road of big government and deficit spending the general framework for my legislation and the concept that we must put a freeze on federal spending is not a new idea president reagan's first official act upon being sworn in as our nation's th president on january twenty one thousand nine hundred and eighty one was signing a presidential memorandum calling for an immediate freeze on the hiring of civilian employees in the executive branch in a statement at the signing of the memorandum he stated that the freeze was a first step toward controlling the growth and size of the government and reducing the drain on the economy for the public sector my legislation builds on reagan's plan by imposing a hiring freeze on federal employees until the budget deficit is eliminated and i want to add into this this includes also contract individuals the bill contains specific limited exceptions in which hiring would be permitted such as time when our nation is at war vital national security interests federal law enforcement purposes to honor prior contractual obligations reassignment of personnel within agencies to fill needed positions positions to facilitate the orderly transition and operation of a new presidential administration and the u s postal service these commonsense exemptions assure that the most critical and basic functions of our federal government remain unaffected by the freeze the fact is we need to manage the government more like we manage our businesses i am perplexed that people are opposed to this idea i recently was informed that we do not need to operate the government like a business because the government can print money at any time this argument does not resonate with me or my constituents in the th district of pennsylvania i worked in a factory until i was thirty years old i worked my way up into management from sweeping floors when the revenues weren't coming in we cut our costs one of the ways we cut our costs was by not replacing people when they left and asking the remaining employees to produce a little more and they did and this isn't about firing or laying off either this approach is what we need to do in washington with federal employees my legislation is not an attack on federal employees or the work that they do i have the utmost respect for the federal workforce i am and i was one as a united states attorney i had the best and the brightest attorneys and staff working for me this is why i know that federal workers are willing and able to step up to be a part of the solution to our nation's problems according to the congressional research service the total cost of the federal workforce in two thousand and ten was five hundred and ninety dollars billion with a b this accounted for nearly thirty percent of total federal receipts for that year we cannot and should not allow the cost of the federal workforce to grow whil millions of americans are struggling this legislation calls on the federal workforce to take a prominent role in the process of leading the country out of our current fiscal crisis obviously a hiring freeze i s not i repeat is not the silver bullet that will unilaterally lead us out of this crisis it is a part but also it is a start it is in combination with other efforts that we have started to enact for example the step that we took in slashing our own office budgets by five percent just because this legislation is not the cureall for the nation's ills does not mean that we cannot begin deliberately addressing an issue that is important to most americans this bill would be a good faith step toward reducing the size of government in addressing the outofcontrol government spending and again i want to emphasize this is a start this includes not only the permanent employees but contracting employees and any other budgeted payout to an individual or an entity it is not a layoff program please don't twist this into a layoff or getting rid of federal employees it is by attrition when they retire when they leave for whatever reason pass away you name it that is the position that we do not fill the time for action is now once again i would like to thank the chairman and ranking member for giving me the opportunity to provide my thoughts on this important issue i stand ready