Bush
Plans Unprecedented Shift of Almost Half of Government Jobs to Outside
Contractors
by Robert Jensen
Dissident Voice
November 24,
2002
President Bush's
announcement last week of his intention to privatize up to half the federal
workforce came with the usual confident talk that it will reduce government
costs and improve services.
Market
ideologues may believe that, but there is no reason citizens should be so
gullible. Instead, we might ask critical questions about the likely
consequences of large-scale privatization and why the Bush gang is so keen on
it.
Research
suggests that where there is real market competition for relatively simple
goods and services, governments can save money and ensure quality through
privatization. Contracting out tasks such as office cleaning may save taxpayers
money in some cases (though often at the cost of lower wages and reduced
benefits for workers).
But that's not
the majority of cases. Often short-term savings evaporate quickly once
competitors drop out. Contractors who underbid to win a contract are free to
raise rates later, often leaving governments with little choice but to accept.
For complex contracts, oversight costs are high, or inadequate oversight leads
to corruption. State and local experience suggests that in services such as
vehicle and highway maintenance, privatization may end up costing taxpayers
more.
So, the cautious
(dare we say "conservative"?) position would be that when the
complexity of the job or the nature of the market argues against privatization,
we should go forward only after careful study. But the Bush proposal suggests
just the opposite: an assumption in favor of privatizing at breakneck speed,
which means careful study will be overridden by ideology and good-old-boy
politicking.
If research and
experience on privatization don't support Bush's enthusiasm, why is he pressing
for such wholesale change?
One potentially
relevant fact: Last year 37.4 percent of government workers were unionized,
compared with 9 percent of private-sector employees. Since organized labor
consistently supports the Democratic Party, it's plausible that Bush simply
wants to reduce the number of workers in a more unionized sector.
Even if
short-term political payback is part of it, there may be a more fundamental
goal, in not only contracting out union jobs but also the push to privatize
programs such as Social Security: Undercut any organization that might increase
the political power of working people. Eliminate any program that might lead
people to work for common interests. Destroy any ideas people might have about
solidarity.
Even though most
unions in the United States years ago accepted a role subordinate to big
business, they are a target of the right wing. Why? Because they remain a
latent threat. Even if not engaged in radical political activity today, unions
are a place where ordinary people can come together politically and wield
power, and hence they must be eliminated.
Social Security
is another obvious target. While hardly a complete solution to poverty among
the elderly, it's a successful program. That's why right-wing pundits and
politicians have worked so hard to scare the public into believing Social
Security is on the brink of collapse. The immediate goal is to allow Wall
Street to get its hands on more money through private retirement funds, but the
long-term goal is to privatize not just these programs but people's minds, to
try to eliminate any sense that we have common bonds and obligations to each
other.
In Bush's 2003 budget, this "competitive sourcing
initiative" to eliminate federal government jobs is explained as part of
the pursuit of "a market-based government unafraid of competition,
innovation, and choice."
I am not afraid of competition,
innovation or choice. But I am deathly afraid of a market-based government, in
which the values of corporate capitalism - the pursuit of profit to the
exclusion of all other considerations - will overwhelm the values of democracy
- equality and liberty.
Robert
Jensen, an associate
professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, is the author of Writing Dissent: Taking
Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream and a member of the Nowar Collective. Email: rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu. Other articles are available at http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/home.htm.