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Blackwater Hearings II: Electric Boogaloo
By Ned | March 11, 2008
Hey, remember these guys?
In letters to the Internal Revenue Service, the Small Business Administration and the Labor Department, Waxman (D-Calif.) questioned Blackwater’s classification of its workers as “independent contractors” rather than employees. That designation, which the government has questioned in the past, has allowed the company to obtain $144 million in contracts set aside for small businesses and to avoid paying as much as $50 million in withholding taxes under State Department contracts, he said.
Wow. On top of Blackwater defending many of these independent contractors from prosecution for being dangerous lunatics, this is just one more reason why Congress needs to take a long, hard look at oversight and hiring practices regarding contractors. For context, the article shows us just how much military might we’re outsourcing here.
In Senate testimony late last month, administration officials said that 163,590 contractor personnel were working in Iraq under Defense contracts, slightly more than the number of U.S. troops there. Of those, 6,467 are armed security personnel, about 1,500 of them American citizens. State Department security contractors total 1,518, about half of them Americans. The officials said that many of the rest are British and South African.
An additional 32,520 Defense contractor personnel are working in Afghanistan.
Sheesh. With that many contractors running around and a government oversight policy that seems to amount to a paternal pat on the back and uttering the phrase, “You kids stay out of trouble now,” it seems like at the very least the laws about this sort of thing need a hardcore overhaul. Hopefully this is the kind of scandal that will get lots of media attentHEY LOOK EVERYONE THE GOVERNOR SLEPT WITH A PROSTITUTE.
Hey, where’d everyone go?
Topics: Congress, Corruption, International Politics, The Media |