"The NDAA also caps the size of the National Security Council policy staff at 150. The National Security Council staff will be capped at 150. The staff has steadily grown over administrations of both parties in recent decades. Under George Herbert Walker Bush, there were 40; more than 100 in the Clinton administration; more than 200 during the George W. Bush administration; and now there are reports of nearly 400 under the current administration, plus as many as 200 contractors. This tremendous growth has enabled a troubling expansion of the NSC staff's activities from their original strategic focus to micromanagement of operational issues in ways that are inconsistent with the intent of Congress when it created the NSC in 1947. It has gotten so bad that all three leaders who served as Secretary of Defense under the current administration recently blasted the NSC's micromanagement of operational issues during their tenures. Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has come out publicly in favor of shrinking the staff, saying he thinks we can do the job better with fewer people."