I think that is a critical part of what needs to be done, as we talked about in the opening remarks.

It is an incredibly important hearing and it is an opportunity to examine the lessons we have learned from wartime contracting.

we stand here today, the day before tax day--the day when all Americans have to get their income taxes together--and we also stand here in the middle of the weakest economic recovery since the Great Depression--a time when economists…

It is not too late to prevent further waste in Afghanistan, and it is not too late to prevent the problems in Iraq and Afghanistan from occurring in the next war, whenever and wherever that may be.

There has not been enough talk about freezing the size of the contracting force and freezing the pay of contractors.

We are spending more money on service-related contractors in many agencies than we are spending on Federal employees.

Assuming that contractors cost less and that the Federal employees cost more does not help this discussion.

I have some of the same concerns that you are, establishing budget numbers without backing them up with good analysis.

Secretary Gates said in a speech that Defense agencies, quote, were not seeing the savings we had hoped for from insourcing.

We need to develop a best practices model to help determine when contracting will save taxpayer dollars.

Thank you, Madam Chairman.

In 2009, you guys started an insourcing initiative and the goal, as I understand it, was to replace 30,000 contractors with DOD civilians between 2010 and 2015.