“In keeping with the Administration’s goal of reducing the taxpayer’s dependence on contractors, the Department introduced its in-sourcing initiative  in the [fiscal year] 2010 budget. Over the next five years, the Department will reduce the number of support service contractors to their pre-2001 level of 26 percent of the workforce (from the current level of 39 percent) and replace them, if needed, with full-time government employees. These efforts will help us establish a balanced total workforce of military, government civilians and contractor personnel that more appropriately aligns public- and private-sector functions, and results in better value for the taxpayer.”

The defense secretary is a moderate Republican and this is quite a sensible statement of contemporary progressive attitudes about governance. If you want to translate it into more vernacular language: “The post-9/11 contractor boom, and its attendant war profiteering? We’re rolling that back.”