evidence: Another way that taxpayers get gouged is through its contractor workforce. Our nation’s defense is often supported through contractors who feed our troops, house out military families, transport needed equipment, and perform a wide range of tasks that, in past years, were either done by active duty military or civilian employees. Over the past quarter-century, DoD spending on service contracts has more than doubled, reaching over $205 billion in fiscal year 2022. [...] Over the past two decades, the Department of Defense has gone from spending about $100 billion a year on service contractors to $205 billion in 2022. And this is the point. It is not quite half of the entire budget that we are spending, but it’s sure starting to crowd in on it. [...] Senator Warren: So here we are spending more than $200 billion on service contractors. We don’t really know how many people we’re hiring or what we’re paying these people. And we accepted the GAO estimate of $200B. I just want to point out, CBO has said it may be closer to $300B. The inability of government accountants even to estimate how much we’re spending is a sign that the Pentagon contracting is badly broken.