Told Ya So
Jerome Doolittle at Bad Attitudes finds some good news of a sort in his piece, …and Privatization Scores Again!
The money quote: “Despite aggressive collection tactics, the contractors have brought in only $49 million in revenue, little more than half of what it has cost the IRS to implement the program.”
Paul Krugman wrote about this practice a while back and correctly identified it as tax farming, one of the many practices that led to the French Revolution.
I’ve been on the planet more than six decades, and I’m still waiting to see a successful privatization of government services. I’ve seen dozens of attempts all over the country, and they all end up more expensive than when the service was provided by public employees. The government ends up spending more money for less service than they had before privatization. It’s like tax cuts, no matter how often the concept is proven to be a failure, Republicans just have to try it again.
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if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
And they do, all over the country, like the failed “Colorado taxpayers’ bill of rights” that they are trying to push onto the state of Florida. Colorado was forced to suspend it before they went into bankruptcy.
The stupid just burns.
First thing you know, the tax farmers will be wanting farm subsidies…
So Republicans are insane by the strict definition — trying the same thing over and over while hoping for different results.
The army has no more KP, and hardly any logistics. Instead they have Halliburton and KBR. It’s a bad tradeoff.
I would say they got a 100% subsidy, Steve, when over $90 million was spent on a $49 million return.
I didn’t like KP, but I sure wouldn’t have appreciated a lot of unknown people “inside the wire” when I participated in my “quagmire”. That’s no way to fight a war.
We had a family friend who fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He and my Dad were stationed together all over the world and he retired after 30. The only time he actually held a rifle and had to use it was at the Bulge, because he was cook for those entire 30 years. Military support people aren’t just clerks and cooks, they can also be riflemen if needed.
If you look at what they do objectively, Scorpio, the conclusion does present itself.