Privatization – Good idea, but it does not work.

The concept of privatization is that private industry can do a better job than the government in running many programs. This is a good concept and true in many cases. It is true where you have real competition, such as electronics stores or Home Depot vs., Lowes or in the auto dealerships that have to fight for your dollar.

But it falls flat on its face when you have private industry take over a government function. You see you lose that one word in these cases competition. All of sudden there is no incentive to be better, what you have done is replaced one bureaucracy with another. You go from a government bureaucracy to a private one. If a service manager at a dealership does not take care of you, you can’t go to a different dealership. It’s the same as if it were the government with a new and different name.

The why do some government leaders love the idea of privatization, it’s a cover, it’s a way to hide from responsibility. All of sudden it’s not a government problem, but a problem at xyz Corp. Talk to their CEO, well try and talk to their CEO. If you think you get the round around with some government agencies, try talking to a contractor of a government function. Try then talking to the government official in charge of the contract, you will never get anywhere, each will claim it’s the others responsibly and you have to talk to them. You will go around and around and around and around --- I think you get the picture.

Next move down the road a few years. The contractor all of a sudden needs more money. The government has requested a new report, etc and this was not within the context of the original contract, therefore the government will have to pay more, etc and on and on. The costs of course for any new effort far exceed anything realistic, you see the private company has you over a barrel. The other shoe drops, unforeseen costs have developed and more money is needed, time to renegotiate the contract. What are you going to do, fire them and switch, too who? No one else does this work? The government has built a monopoly within its own state network. Bring the work back into the state, wait you fired all the people who know how to run that department and replaced them with a few contract monitors, who by now have no clue what is going on. And, in no time all your savings are gone and now you are paying even more. But the size of government is smaller, but the size of real government is much larger. This is another way industry pads the bill to the government by growing in size to meet your “needs.”

Let’s look at the sale of the toll road by Mitch. I am willing to bet in a few years the new owner will go to court to get a toll increase. They will claim the cost of maintenance was incorrectly developed by the state and the higher oil prices, etc, require a higher toll. If everyone fights them and says no, they will declare bankruptcy and have the court save them with a price increase. Mitch could have achieved the same thing of raising money by sell highway bonds and keeping ownership of the toll road. This will rear its ugly head in a few years, but Mitch will be long gone and no one will remember who got us into the dumb mess.

Be very careful of privatization, sounds good on paper or from the mouths of politicians, but it does not work and by the time you figure out it does not work the politician proposing the original concept is long gone. So now it becomes your problem.

If elected I will work to stop any state privatization effort.


I an running for State Representative from the 29th District and I approve this message.