DOGE opinions

[3beansalad]

Depending on the tasks, federal contractors are not cheaper than federal employees - common misconception.

The contractor's wages are often utter garbage, I'll give people that. So yes, the contractor might make $20 an hour where their federal counterpart makes $32/h (equivalent) doing the exact same thing.

However, the labor rates the company charges to the federal government is $45. Contractor gets $20, $25/h to the company for costs of labor and profit.

So your federal employee is costing the gov about $40/h in true costs of labor, while the contractor is $45/h for the same position. Pension contributions have been adjusted over the years where a federal pension is no longer what it was.

Very neutered analysis, but this is what I'm talking about.

Labor rates I've seen for even low-to-mid level contracting jobs are often around $65-72/hour (that the company is paid by the gov). I've seen some as high as $161/h. Again, the contracted employee... does not make those numbers. But that's what it costs the gov.

It's great if you own one of those companies. But it doesn't eliminate waste/fraud.

This is a very interesting comment to me. As a 30 year civilian construction subcontractor, the cost of labor is dictated by the federal government. For a typical commercial project being bid on the Front Range, our field 'mechanics' are paid $28 per hour plus benefits and $15 per day for fuel. A federal contract on the Front Range can range from $43 to $51 per hour for the same scope. We still provide the same benefits/ fuel stipend to our employees.
Our overhead and profit is the same no matter what we bid/ build. In fact, we are required to provide the labor and material breakdowns to prove it we don't exceed Federal standards on overhead and profit. I have always made more profit on private jobs than federal. We can complete the work faster with far less bureaucracy. Quality is often impacted negatively by the gov't requirements. The federal standards are based on 50 year old requirements for our scope. Materials have come a long way since then, and can be installed faster with less waste than the COE allows.
We are also required to produce weekly documentation that proves we pay the required wage. I'm sure there have been contractors that don't, but I've never seen one. And the risk of not paying your employees per the mandated Davis-Bacon schedule is more than small contractors ($1-10M per year) could absorb and stay in business.

We don't "get" to charge the government more, they mandate it.