[bsilvereagle]

> You lose a great deal of institutional knowledge (particularly critical for civil service which has many long running programs (for various reasons both good and bad)).

NASA and DoD research labs are still dealing with the experience and cultural gaps from the hiring freezes of the 90s. I think for a lot of Americans it's easy to think of the "lazy bureaucrats" of the federal government (which definitely exist) and see a freeze or Reduction in Force as an overall good thing. However, every freeze and RIF has long lasting damage in the federal scientific community.

[pmorici]

I think streamlining the process to fire under-performing federal employees is much needed. More so than a hiring freeze or reduction.

[Jtsummers]

Yep. I've worked on projects that were clearly impeded by a lack of understanding of how things were done (by the new people, myself included at times), and how things needed to be updated (primarily by the older people, strong resistance to changing processes (sometimes a good thing, often bad when done as a blanket policy)).