Doesn't matter how many are burning presently, how many could be on fire tomorrow, do you know? Do we have the capacity or training to put them out? If not, it's best we have someone on 'retainer' who can, isn't it? I gave this example to illustrate a point, not that we have a problem right now with oil fires, but that certain contractors perform a function we can't do with the military. Yes, we can eliminate some contractors, we can let the soldiers do a lot of the work, but there are certain things we can't eliminate and we must outsource, because there is no other practical way.
I don't see where that is what I said. Again, we can eliminate government defense contracts, but that has a consequence. All of the major contractors are located somewhere, and they employ thousands of people somewhere. When you punch their meal ticket, where are they going to go and what are they going to do? Not much use in the private sector for high-tech military hardware, so they would probably fold and lay off a lot of people as a result. Now suddenly, a town which was full of well-paid government contract workers, is a town full of people on unemployment. This means, not as much money to spend going out to eat at Red Lobster, so Red Lobster decides to close that location... the waitress who is a single mom struggling to get by, is effected. She isn't a defense contractor, and you didn't intend to cost her this job, but that is the consequence and ramification. Multiply this by hundreds of thousands, who will lose their jobs in totally unrelated businesses, because you pulled the plug on government contracts.
I'm not saying that we shouldn't touch defense contracts, that's what you want me to be saying so you can ridicule me. I'm saying that everything we cut has a consequence and we need to look at them before we start cutting. It's not as easy as waltzing in and waving our hand and making defense contracts go away!
