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>To force military leaders to focus on the services and not themselves, I’d support a ban on senior level leadership (O-7 and above) from accepting board seats
by gozur88 10y ago
>To force military leaders to focus on the services and not themselves, I’d support a ban on senior level leadership (O-7 and above) from accepting board seats or contractor / full-time positions with defense contractors.
That is an excellent idea, though I would extend it to cover any senior government leadership revolving into private sector positions in industries they regulated or for which they awarded contracts. There's clearly a conflict of interest, and nobody is going to starve on a senior official's retirement package.
- paulddraper 10y agoYou may be justified, but that would certainly rub me the wrong way to be denied a job because I had a blacklisted employer on my resume.
- srtjstjsj 10y agoYou'd have to be satisfied by your lifelong pension.
- hueving 10y agoBut then we would miss out on all of the greedy people!
- lordnacho 10y agoNo, you could do work that wasn't related. Suppose you worked as a buyer for the military, the law would say you can't jump over to people you bought from. But there's no reason you couldn't retire and become a buyer for some other industry.
- kbenson 10y agoPresumably you would know before applying (or at this level, more likely the headhunter should know before approaching). In any case, it's something that would probably be phased in. If you take a position, are reelected, or continue in a position 3 years after the law takes affect, then the the law affects you. It would be interesting to see who jumped to the private sector before it affected them.
- paulddraper 10y agoOf course. But even then, I would still think it heavy-handed. If my job goes south, I have to switch whole professions.
- kbenson 10y agoServing your country as an elected official is a privilege, and does not happen by accident. You should know what you are getting into, and you should not consider yourself part of the industry while you are in office. Serving as a high level employee through advancement (such as the military) means that was your profession. Preventing a military official form joining the board of a defense contractor is causing them to change professions, it is preventing them from changing into a specific profession. This is specific to government positions because those engender specific abuses of power. There isn't necessarily a parallel in the private sector (I think the closest you can get is government granted monopolies, such as utilities, where customers do not have a freedom of choice).
- paulajohnson 10y agoWhile I agree with the sentiment, I see it as being too easy to evade. If you can't accept regular employment with BigGunCorp then become a contractor who accepts a lucrative contract from a consultancy working under contract from BigGunCorp. And that's assuming you don't want to hide what you are doing.