With all the discussion on the count of federal employees let us count the number of contractors who work for the GOV.

There is a lot of talk about government growth and most of this is concentrated on the count of federal employees and active duty military levels. Seeing how the government operates salary information and these counts almost appear useless. Much of the work accomplished in government is being accomplished by contractors who are used just like employees in most cases. They and their salary data should be counted as well to find out if we are getting the best benefit to our workforce or should we hire more government employees. Let us audit and count the number of contract staff accomplishing government work so we can at least make basic decisions. Additionally, when we have large number of contractors we should evaluate if employees would more efficiently accomplish long term tasks.