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CounterPunch
November
25, 2002
Bush Puts a Contract Out on
Federal Jobs
by ROBERT JENSEN
President Bush's announcement last week of his
intention to privatize up to half the federal workforce came
with the usual confident talk about reducing government costs
and improving 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 services through
privatization. Contracting out tasks such as office cleaning
may save taxpayers some money in some cases (though often at
the cost of lower wages and reduced benefits for workers).
But that is not the majority of cases.
Often the short-term savings that privatization promises 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. Experience at the local and
state levels suggests that in services such as vehicle and highway
maintenance, privatization actually ended 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 demonstrates otherwise. 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.
At one point in U.S. history a similar
process ruled the day -- the spoils system -- and in 1883 a civil-service
system was created to thwart politicians who used jobs and contracts
to reward political allies and line their own pockets. Today's
officials assure us that they can be trusted to carry out privatization
cleanly, but logic and experience argue for skepticism. Every
politician who ever took money to lock in a contract for a buddy
told the public, "You can trust me."
If research and experience on privatization
don't support Bush's enthusiasm, why he is 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, not only
in contracting out union jobs but 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 subordinated role 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 the 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,
where 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
is an associate professor of journalism at the University of
Texas at Austin, a member of the Nowar Collective, and author
of the book Writing
Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream
and the pamphlet "Citizens of the Empire."
He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.
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