Republicans have been telling us for as long as I can remember that the government is wasteful.  And for the past 20 years, many Democrats have accepted that as partially true.  However, during the Health Care debate all the data indicated that Medicare is significantly more efficient than the health care market.  Now a study by the Project on Government Oversight indicates that federal employees are more taxpayer friendly than private contractors.  

http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2011/09/by-dana-liebelson-the-us-governments-increasing-reliance-on-contractors-to-do-work-traditionally-done-by-federal-empl.html

This study should generate much debate: and the methodology needs to be confirmed by other studies.  That being said, when taxpayer dollars are at stake we should rely on empirical arguments not partisan dogma.