When a buddy of mine graduated from MIT, he went to work for another Army facility, the old Watertown Arsenal. He worked with a guy who spent all day doing the NYT crossword puzzle. Another guy slept at his desk. At the end of the year, they would exhaust their budget on million-dollar testing equipment that would sit idle.
Reagan threatened to shutter the Arsenal. There was a great hue and cry in the media. My friend laughed when Tip O'Neill was interviewed in front of the building, describing it as a vital facility.
In the end, the base commission closed it. Now it's a shopping mall.
I suspect that these facilities are tight ships in comparison to the rest of the government.
Let it burn.
Take the private security guard example versus the TSA rent-a-cops.
Private security guards at our plants have to watch a whole battery of security monitors and be off in a flash to check out anything which looks even remotely suspicious in all kinds of weather. They make about $12 per hour and a provided with a fairly generic uniform. Their benefits are minimal.
His TSA counterparts start at $18 per hour and get a full range of government benefits including (starting this year) another $1000 allowance for spiffy new uniforms which went into effect just before the March 1 sequester started.