[quote=livinincali]
That’s because of the way it’s done. It’s almost always done as a transfer of a public service monopoly to a private service monopoly. We’re taking bids to select the new single provider of x service. It’s never we’re opening up this service to all business that would like to perform the task. I don’t expect the practice to change. I’m just saying that privatization could be successful if done in the manner I described. I’m well aware that there would be concerns and some pains associated with that type of change at first but eventually it would be a better system.

[/quote]

To quote the most interesting man in the world “when you find something you don’t do very well, don’t do that thing”. Government doesn’t outsource very well. Hell, even private industry often doesn’t outsource very well.

As big a problem as the often extra costs are, is the destination of those costs. The increasing wage gap we’ve experienced in this country over the last three decades has severely shrunk the middle class. Outsourcing of government services has increased the size of this gap, as traditional government services are turned into private services. The government doesn’t want to make a profit, it wants to deliver whatever the body politic deems to be essential services.

Even when those services are outsourced at the identical cost, the economy suffers, because private industry doesn’t work for free. They work for profit. So rather than the costs ending up in the hands of the highest number of people, they end up in the lowest. And that IS the wage gap. An ever expanding piece of the pie going to those who provide capital rather than those who provide work.