Should government functions that benefit "We the people" be privatized?

Question

Things like roads, homeland security, intellgence gathering, water suppies etc. etc.

Answer 1

Should they? No. Will they? Yes.

Politicians are a breed of short term thinkers. They care about today, ignore the past, and are oblivious to the future.

If someone is going to wave a huge bundle of cash to a cash strapped government, then you'll see many things be privatized without consideration of the long term impacts.

I work for a government agency, and there was talk of privatizing it. Nobody but the governor was in favor of the idea. Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, and many others in the community agreed that making the public service private would be worse for the community at large.

The governor has recanted his desire to privatize the institution.

Consider for a moment what our lives would be like if every public service were privatized? We'd live in a very marginalized society with distinct differences between rich and poor. The middle class would be small, and almost non-existent.

Take education. The GOP has been deliberately underfunding public schools so that they'll fail. As schools get worse, they begin to promote the idea of privatized schools. They'll sell us the notion that businesses are more efficient than government, and that businesses are not going to be pushed about by "liberal" politics.

Bottom line: they wish to create an expensive, class-based, tiered educational structure that panders to consumer interest at the expense of the public at large.

Profit is the bottom line of businesses and private interests. Public welfare is no concern to the monied interests.

Just image what kind of education poor Americans would receive if education was privatized. They'd get the McDonald's variant of education. Many middle income families would find themselves even further cash-strapped by having to pay for their child's education personally.

Not to be rude, but there are things children need to learn away from the home beyond a watchful parent's eye. In particular, sex education.

As such, a privatized system would create a tailorized and custom made education instead of giving a broad and general education.

Schools could teach their "preferred" method of teaching subjects like history, religion, and other humanities.

We'd lose cohesiveness and unity as a people if the system was privatized.

Look at Indiana and other states that have privatized their tollway systems. Nobody is happy with the arrangements except the politicians that engineered the deal and the businesses that are raking in profits from the deal.

Privatization is basically a lose-lose situation for the public at large in a long-term context. It's a win-win for businesses and politicians of cash strapped governments.

Lastly, how do you hold a private business/group accountable. If they have millions of dollars and armies of lawyers and lobbyists, how do you compete with them if they do you or your community wrong?

Money corrupts.

It's our duty as citizens to safeguard our liberties. We need to stay informed, stay active, and keep our friends and family in the know.

We have to work against privatization if we wish to keep living in a free society.

Keep in mind the purpose of having a government: to protect the public from each other, from private and secretive interests that have ambitions of power and control.

Government is a tool that should provide protection of our civil liberties, our property, and our rights to pursue our own happiness.

As a tool, it's only as effective as the people running it. We need to put people in office that understand what government is, and how to use it. We need to stop putting people in government that use it for enhancing their business dealings and that have contempt for the government and its purpose.

We wouldn't hire a carpenter who hated tools. Why elect someone who hates government?

Answer 2

Roads and water supplies have already been privatized in some areas. Privitization always works better than government control, because there is nothing more inefficient and wasteful than the government. That's why private schools work and public schools don't.

I think, though, that the privitization of homeland security (as a whole) and intelligence gathering would present a plethora of problems.

Answer 3

Interesting question actually. My personal opinion is that certain socialistic endeavours benefit most or all citizens equally. For example, public school. However there will always be the argument that people who have no children and people who have a lot of children will be getting an unfair cost:benefit. Too much and too little respectivly.

Privatizing certain functions doesn't always mean they will be done more efficiently. For example, Halliburton's operations in Iraq are a complete waste of tax payer's money even though they exist as a private contractor.

Answer 4

The government should stick to the functions specifically chartered in the U.S. Constitution. However, privatization of other functions must be monitored; otherwise, private companies will get greedy and find ways to increase profitability (not through cost-efficiencies, but through consumer gougings).

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The Constitution begins "We the People...."
NOT 'WE the Corporations....'
NOT 'We the Special Interest....'
NOT 'We the Rich and Influential....'
NOT 'We the Lobbyists.....'

There could be efficiencies in privatizing some government functions, but the capitalist mindset would have to replaced with an attitude toward public good instead of the profit incentive.

-RKO-

Answer 5

No, there are many examples of when these functions are turned over to a for profit company, the company does what ever it takes to maximize it's profit. Medicare part D is a perfect example. Contracting out child foster care supervision is another example. Halliburton in Iraq is another example of maximizing profit for a minimum of actual service.

Answer 6

How would you ever do that ? put a privecy fence around the Usa ? and who is we the people? just the ones that were orginally here the nativies . or the immagrent TOO. and which Immagrent gets the privalge? just the white immagrents... come on now.

Answer 7

The functions that should be re-privatized are those that are not the government's in the first place (i.e. unconstitutional) - education, welfare, social security, mediscams, etc.

The rest are legitimate functions of governments.