The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 300,000 Department of Defense employees, is arguing in a letter to lawmakers that DoD has long skirted the caps by enlarging its contractor workforce. It’s the latest in a years-long tug of war over the military’s so-called “fourth estate,” made up of agencies outside of the service branches.

“These personnel caps mask true overhead costs by creating incentives for shell games involving creating field operating agencies that are really part of the headquarters or shifting ‘closely associated with inherently governmental’ functions and ‘critical functions’ to contractors,” AFGE Legislative Director Julie Tippens said in a Feb. 8 letter to the leaders of the House and Senate armed services panels.

The letter outlines the union’s priorities for the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, which the panels aren’t expected to begin drafting until after President Joe Biden releases his FY23 defense budget request some weeks from now.

AFGE says it wants to repeal statutory caps of 4,300 personnel at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, as well as caps on headquarters personnel for the Army (1,350), the Navy and Marine Corps (1,350 total for both) and Air Force (1,100). Personnel for the Pentagon’s management headquarters activities and management headquarters support activities are frozen by law at 1989 levels, and AFGE wants that repealed too.

AFGE argues contractors cost more than government employees, which is in line with the findings of a Project On Government Oversight review of DoD budget and spending data. POGO in 2012 found that contractor employees cost nearly three times more than an average DoD civilian employee performing the same job.

AFGE’s proposal is already seeing some pushback on Capitol Hill, where there’s a long history of efforts to pare back the Pentagon’s civilian bureaucracy. The top Republican on the House defense appropriations subcommittee, Rep. Ken Calvert of California, last year proposed a 15% cut to DoD’s civilian workforce and decried AFGE’s proposal this month in a statement.

“Today, we have fewer troops, fewer Navy warships, and fewer combat aircraft than we did under President [Ronald] Reagan. We are also at a historical high when it comes to the number of civilian workers at the Defense Department,” Calvert said. “We should focus on performance and ensure that the Department is more efficient and effective through eliminating unnecessary middle management and modernizing business practices. Eliminating the caps on civilians does the exact opposite.”

Though Pentagon officials with the Obama and Trump administrations have sought savings through headquarters civilian reductions, it’s unclear how the Pentagon will respond to AFGE’s current push. A Pentagon spokesperson declined to comment on AFGE’s letter, but Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, before her current role as DoD’s top manager, expressed some skepticism over past efforts to control costs by cutting personnel.

“Predictably, for example, even though Congress directed the Defense Department to cut $10 billion through administrative efficiencies between 2015 and 2019, the Pentagon failed to substantiate that it had achieved those savings,” Hicks said in a 2020 essay for Foreign Affairs magazine. “The reason those efforts rarely succeed is that they merely shift the work being done by civilians to others, such as military personnel or defense contractors.”

Likewise, Todd Harrison, director of defense budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he’s wary of using workforce adjustments as a means to rein in spending. He said cost comparisons between contractors and civilians are tricky because long-term civilian pension costs are hard to predict and eliminating unnecessary tasks at DoD is a more effective way to find efficiencies.

“When you start cutting back on unnecessary or low-priority tasks and missions, then you can start reducing headcount,” Harrison said. “Whether it’s a civilian or a contractor, in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you stop spending money paying people to do things that don’t need to be done.”

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. — Some Republican lawmakers are signaling they would like a speedy confirmation of President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, retired Marine Corps Gen. Jim Mattis. 

But the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee is saying not so fast.

Echoing concerns a required waiver for the retired four-star might erode civilian control of the military, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., warned that Democrats — in spite of widespread admiration for Mattis — may fight his confirmation if the GOP skips a substantive debate.

Though the Senate, not the House, has the constitutional responsibility of confirming Cabinet nominees, the process for Mattis’ waiver should include his testimony before the House Armed Services Committee and be backed up by stand-alone legislation, Smith said in a phone interview on Saturday.

“We need to have a conversation about why the civilian control of the military is so important, and both the House and the Senate need to do their due diligence, asking Gen. Mattis those questions — and have that debate, not just to rubber-stamp it,” Smith said.

For his part, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, both backs Mattis with high praise and has said the matter of the waiver would receive “a full discussion,” before Mattis can be granted a waiver and confirmed.

“We’re not going to try to ram it through, we’re going to fully talk to the experts, the legal scholars and others, and do it in due course,” Thornberry told Defense News on Saturday.

Civilian control of the military dates to the nation’s earliest days and reflects the balance of powers outlined in the Constitution. The National Security Act of 1947, amended in 2008, bars active-duty officials from serving in the Pentagon’s top job for seven years after leaving service. Mattis only retired as the four-star chief of US Central Command in 2013.

“Let’s have a serious hearing and a serious discussion about this,” Smith said. “I’m not saying I oppose Gen. Mattis, but I want it to get discussed, and I want Gen. Mattis to give assurances that he understands the difference between being a commanding general and the secretary of defense.”

Republicans and Democrats have praised Mattis as a warrior-scholar who could counterbalance Trump’s lack of experience in foreign affairs and national security.

Democratic aides privately concede that Mattis’ confirmation is practically a foregone conclusion, particularly as Republican majorities control both chambers. Still, they argue there is a foundational principle of democracy in play that deserves of careful handling—and that trampling it could severely taint Mattis as defense secretary.

“It would be poisonous to him,” one Democratic aide said.

Because Trump tapped Mattis for defense secretary, appointed retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as his national security adviser and is considering retired Gen. David Petraeus for secretary of state, one worry is Trump will miss out on non-military answers to his foreign policy challenges.

“Having dealt with Gen. Mattis, he has a more balanced understanding of the military, diplomacy, aid, partnerships and all that,” Smith said. “In terms of a policy outlook I’m much more in agreement with Gen. Mattis than any of the other people President-elect Trump has picked thus far.”

One scenario has GOP leaders in Congress starting the year with a confirmation process in parallel with moving legislation for the exception. On Inauguration Day, the president could be sworn in, nominate Mattis, the Senate could confirm Mattis, and Trump could receive and sign the exception, enabling the new secretary to begin his work.

Congress is teeing up confirmation hearings soon after Jan. 1 with a heavy schedule that includes working each weekday in January and votes scheduled on Inauguration Day Jan. 20, according to Kansas Republican Sen. Jerry Moran.

Moran, who sits on the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, told the Reagan National Security Forum here Saturday he expects the Senate to give Mattis a confirmation vote as early as Inauguration Day— complicated by the waiver legislation’s vulnerability to a filibuster, which would take 60 votes to override.

“It seems to me in a bipartisan way, there is an interest in accomplishing that,” Moran said. “Although the new Minority Leader [Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.] has indicated every nomination will be taken very seriously, and there is some expectation that no confirmation will go through easily.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., opposes the waiver for Mattis and plans to require the 60 vote supermajority to advance waiver legislation in the Senate. She would not grant an exception to such a fundamental principle of American democracy, she said, though she respects Mattis’ service.

Republicans control both chambers and could find a path to quickly confirm Mattis, so Smith said he sought and received assurances from Thornberry.

“I’ve had a good conversation with Mac Thornberry, who should be the guy Republicans listen to, and he has respect for the notion that this is something we should at least examine,” Smith said. “The details, that hasn’t been agreed to.”

Thornberry told Defense News on Saturday that before the Senate confirms Mattis for the position, both the House and the Senate would have to pass a law to allow him to serve. That gives the House “a role we don’t usually have, and I think the issues are serious. Civilian control of the military is a serious issue.”

Congress last passed a waiver in 1950, for Gen. George C. Marshall, who Thornberry compared with Mattis.

“I think Mattis is exceptional, I think we live in very perilous times, and I think it is appropriate to have a full discussion and to say Gen. Mattis can serve — without changing the underlying rule that says you have to be out seven years before you can serve as the secretary of defense.”

Senate Armed Services Committee Chair John McCain, R-Ariz., has expressed support for Mattis’ confirmation. His Democratic counterpart, Ranking Member Jack Reed, D-R.I., voiced support for a Congressional debate on the principle in play.

“It is clear that General Mattis is a respected Marine and strategic thinker who served with honor and distinction,” Reed said in a statement last month. “What is less clear is how Congress would go about changing the law to allow him or any recently retired senior officer to serve as the head of the Pentagon. That would require ‎a debate about our constitutional principle of civilian control of the military and passing a new bill.”

It’s as yet unclear whether House Democrats will rally to the cause, particularly those outside the HASC. Last week House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer hailed the Mattis nomination without qualification, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi issued a statement that was silent on the waiver but jabbed Trump’s “impulsive, ill-informed and dangerous ideas on America’s military and national security strategy.”

Email:  jgould@defensenews.com

Twitter:  @reporterjoe