Does anyone know what the going rate is for contract work in the U.S.? The work is on a large web app, and is roughly 80% perl, 20% html & javascript.

This is basically my Venn. For long term contracts I've been paid anywhere between $30-$65/hour (on site and telecommute at both ends of the range) and I've seen other contractors around me making anywhere from $25-$100/hour. I'm personally flexible for money. I've taken lower paying jobs because they were interesting or short term. I've left high paying jobs because there was just too much spaghetti and it starts to make you crazy.

The problem is that good contractors are difficult to find and it doesn't seem to be directly related to the money offered. I could not in good conscience recommend more than a couple of the other contractors I've worked with with and that's a damn shame. Plus, the decent software coders seem almost universally bad at HTML/CSS/JS. I know there are exceptions, dragonchild comes to mind of course, but I can only think of one or two I've worked with directly in 10 years.

As for outsourcing, I think your qualms are well founded. It doesn't help much if you can hire someone with a CS Masters in Bangalore for $15/hour if you have to pay one of your in-house developers 5 hours a day to coach and interact with him and he's half-asleep keeping up with your hours timezone. If I had any gumption I'd move to India and start a consulting company so I could be the liaison and charge the same $60/hour for me + 3 local devs or something. :)

Um... good luck. You might also search in here for hiring stuff. dragonchild started an interesting, and deep, IIRC, thread about hiring awhile back. Let's see... On Finding, Hiring, Inspiring and Keeping is related, also On Interviewing and Interview Questions, though less so. I can't seem to find the one I'm thinking of. Little help, someone more awake than I am?