There was a time when US soldiers did everything from peel potatoes to fix vehicles in motor pools. That, of course, is the past. These days the US military, along with others, hire private contractors to do such things. Not only that, they also hire them for security purposes as well. Take Blackwater (now Xe Services LLC) for example. The US State Department does not significantly rely on US military personnel to protect them, they rely on private contractors such as Xe, which is the largest of the State Department’s three primary security contractors. Two-thirds of Xe’s government contracts are no-bid.

There are currently more private contractors in Afghanistan than there are US troops, providing a variety of services from the operation of shower facilities on US bases to security operations. The contracts doled out by the federal government are worth a fortune and have become a contributing factor to the overwhelming size of the national defense budget. While many Americans were outraged at the government’s $700 billion dollar financial bailout package, the fact that the 2010 defense budget will end up being between $880 billion and $1 trillion dollars doesn’t seem to phase many Americans. Of course, the base budget total approved by Congress was $680 billion, but that doesn’t take into account not only a $40 to $50 billion dollar supplemental for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also defense related expenditures outside of the DOD’s sphere which are estimated to be between an additional $216 billion to $361 billion.

The defense sector is so engrained in the US political landscape that voting districts are purposely targeted by contractors to influence Congressional votes on programs. If a program is phased out, and isn’t replaced with something just as lucrative, people lose jobs, job loss turns to outrage towards elected officials, and elected officials are voted out of office and quite commonly replaced by someone willing to help secure those jobs. It could be something as simple as the construction of small parts for a single fast attack vehicle, helicopter, tank, or jet. It doesn’t matter in the end – the widespread loss of income in a Congressional district is tantamount to political suicide if the politician in question is responsible for voting against the program that ultimately leads to the loss of jobs.

There is also the political side to take into account as well. Since the advent of the permanent American militarized state following the Second World War, both the Democrats and Republicans have specifically targeted such voting districts during elections, using the promise of the continuance of defense programs, or the introduction of new ones, to bolster voter support within them.

Phasing out the contract of a single jet fighter, for example, can mean the loss of jobs in multiple States. One wonders how close we are to the point when the loss of private contracts, as mentioned above, will have the same impact?