Paul Krugman: Extensive Outsourcing Leads to Trouble

There’s a new article in the March/April edition of the Washington Monthly making the point that the United States needs federal bureaucrats to manage spending, including spending on private contractors, and that understaffing the government — which we’re doing already, and will do more of if the right gets its way — actually increases the deficit. I agree.

“In practice, cutting civil servants often means either adding private contractors or ... resorting to the belief that industries have a deep capacity to police themselves,” John Gravois writes.

“Strange as it may sound, to get a grip on costs, we should in many cases be hiring many more bureaucrats — and paying more to get better ones — not cutting their numbers and freezing their pay.”