In a first step to making 425,000 government jobs eligible for private contracting, President Bush has ordered 40,000 federal workers to compete for their jobs with the private sector. While the initiative is an attempt to make the civil service more responsive and efficient through competition, critics such as federal employee unions and Democratic lawmakers fear that it will lead to outsourcing, and as a result, decreased institutional knowledge and long term effectiveness. The Bush administration says that establishing competition in the workplace is a top priority that the President will continue to pursue.
See "Bush Opens 40,000 Federal Workers’ Jobs to Competition", Ellen Nakashima, The Washington Post, June 7, 2001