The Privatization Fraud.

For many years, the GOP has called for smaller government while, at the same time, extolling the virtues of privatization. GOP politicians have pushed for private schools through tax incentives and vouchers. In many states, they have turned the operation of prisons over to private, for-profit corporations. And thanks to the GOP, many of the operations once provided by military personnel are now provided by private contractors, such as Halliburton and Blackwater.

More recently, the GOP has pushed for privatizing Medicare through a voucher system and privatizing Social Security through private financial institutions.

The argument is that private companies can always perform tasks better and cheaper than public institutions. But before you jump on the privatization bandwagon, maybe you should ignore the rhetoric and look at studies which compare the costs and quality of services provided by private institutions with those provided by government.

Let’s begin by comparing charter schools with public schools. A 2009 report entitled Multiple Choice Charter School Performance in 16 States by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University found that only 17 percent of charter schools performed better than public schools while 47 percent performed at roughly the same level and 37 performed worse than public schools! This is in spite of the fact that charter schools often get to select students and usually provide few of the extra-curricular activities that public schools do.

As for prisons, a 2012 study by the Tucson Citizen found that private prisons cost the State of Arizona $3.5 million per year more than public prisons even though private prisons do not take high security prisoners or those with chronic illnesses. Ironically, the one exception is Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Tent City. Like the name suggests, Tent City is a series of canvas tents in the desert with no heat or air conditioning. The bathrooms are portable toilets. Prisoners are made to wear pink underwear. And prisoners are served two meals a day. One meal consists of milk, juice, porridge and a hard roll. The other consists of a green baloney sandwich. Yet, despite the primitive conditions, Tent City costs more per prisoner than any other jail or prison in Arizona. Worse, recidivism is 14 percent higher than the national average.

Sheriff Joe may be the self-proclaimed “nation’s toughest sheriff” and an extreme conservative, but he is a failure as a steward of taxpayers’ money.

Nevertheless, the biggest waste of money is the privatization of our military. During the early stages of the Afghan war and the Iraq war, the Department of Defense (DoD) awarded no-bid contracts to Halliburton for everything from food service to transport and supply. In addition, the DoD handed out lucrative contracts for security services to Blackwater. The expectation was that privatizing such services would cost the US substantially less and allow the DoD to focus on military operations. But, after examining the DoD’s own documents, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) found that private contractor employees cost 2.94 times more than an average DoD employee performing the same job!

According to POGO, in 2010 the DoD spent $254 billion for contract employees compared to $108 billion for civilian personnel directly employed by the DoD and $150 billion for military personnel.

None of this should come as a surprise to anyone. After all, the primary difference between a service provided by government and a service provided by a corporation is profit. The corporation must deliver profits in order to pay dividends to shareholders. And the corporate CEOs tend to pay themselves salaries that are many times those of government leaders. In most cases, the only way private corporations can compete with government is to reduce the scope and quality of service.

Imagine what will happen if they ever get their hooks into Medicare and Social Security!

Public Versus Private. Corporations Versus People.

Ever since President Ronald Reagan said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are I’m from the government and I’m here to help,” conservatives have attributed virtually all of our problems to the federal government. They believe that the government cannot do anything well. As a result, they have continually cut taxes in order to starve the government of revenue, making it less effective and less efficient so it better lives up to their expectations.

At the same time, conservatives have pushed to privatize many government functions. Private, for-profit contractors now handle many of the functions that our military once did, including food service, transportation, supply and security. Both state and federal governments have awarded contracts to private prison corporations. Public education now competes for funding with private charter schools. Even our most sensitive spying and surveillance programs have been outsourced to private companies as evidenced by the revelations surrounding Edward Snowden.

But are these private entities really better than the government? Is the government really the problem? Much of the evidence says no.

The jury is still out on whether or not privatizing our military is a good idea, but there have been numerous embarrassing incidents in which private contractors were accused of committing war crimes. As for private prisons, studies have shown that they cost far more per inmate than public prisons, even though private prisons refuse to accept high security prisoners and those with chronic illnesses. And a study by Stanford University has shown that private charter schools perform no better than public schools.

Moreover, the 2013 Customer Rage Survey by Customer Care Measurement and Consulting and the Arizona State University W. P. Carey School of Business found that the percentage of people with customer service problems grew from 32 percent in 1976 to 50 percent in 2013. And 56 percent of those who complained in 2013 remain unsatisfied. Most telling is the fact that 98 percent of the most serious customer service problems involved private companies. Only 2 percent were associated with the government!

How can that be? Is it possible Reagan was wrong?

The truth is, our government is ultimately accountable to us. It may seem big and uncaring, but one election can change everything. On the other hand, today’s giant financial institutions and multinational corporations have little accountability to customers. Certainly, you can move your account from a large bank to a smaller one, but the likelihood is that it, too, is controlled by a large holding company. You can switch insurance companies and find that the new company is just as difficult to deal with as the previous one. Likewise, you can get rid of your cable company, but your satellite provider may not be any more responsive. Indeed, it may be worse.

The problem is not a matter of public versus private. Most customer service problems stem from bureaucracy – both public and private.

But our most serious problem involves both public and private institutions. It centers on the alliance between government and large corporations based on disproportionate access and influence. Consider, for example, the alliance between the George W. Bush White House and Richard “The Dick” Cheney’s former company, Halliburton, which was awarded billions in no-compete military contracts for Iraq and Afghanistan; or the alliance between Ohio congressional representatives (both Republican and Democrat) and the Ohio contractor for Abrams tanks which was awarded a contract for additional tanks that the Army neither wants or needs; or the alliance between Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s staff and a private prison company which led to the company receiving multi-million dollar contracts for private prisons. There are many, many more examples.

Not surprisingly, many of the government’s most outspoken critics are conservatives who will gladly spend money to enrich their districts, their states, their corporate friends and themselves.