How Privatization Rips Us All Off

[Tom Joad]

This big push to privatize government functions started in the 1980's and has gone hand in hand with trickle down economics. I watched in unfold at the state level in Florida during m career at the DOT and it resulted in dramatic cost increases. I watched out budgets for "consultants" balloon out of control, but the Politicians didn't mind at all. In fact there were times when it looked like we would have consultant money left over at the end of the year and we would have meetings where our management would encouraged us to find ways to spend it all up. It was surreal.

The Project on Government Oversight found that in 33 of 35 cases the federal government spent more on private contractors than on public employees for the same services. The authors of the report summarized, "Our findings were shocking."

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