A report on NPR's "Morning Edition" Monday began a series exploring the explosion in federal government contracting since Ronald Reagan infamously said "Government isn't the solution. Government is the problem." Contracting out government services has increased every year since that 1981 pronouncement, and has certifiably exploded during the Dubya administration. Did you know that there actually are more contractors in Iraq right now than there are US military personnel?
But Reagan mis-defined the problem, and we are now suffering the long-term effects of his error. The reason he mis-defined the problem is that he forgot (if he ever knew) to whom employees, be they federal or be they contractors', are required to answer for their work.
Contractors are answerable to their company's owners, and their first duty is to maximize profit for their owners. Federal employees, on the other hand, are answerable to ALL of us, and their obligation is to do their jobs to the best of their ability for the good of the people of this country.
This is why contracting out government services is a bad idea. Those whose first duty is to make a profit do not care whether they make it by gouging the public. [Indeed, they are the real pigs at the public trough.--Ed.] Case in point: the IRS has been forced to contract out collection services. People who owe back taxes are being harassed by collection agencies--who have a strong motive to make people pay because they get to keep 25% of everything they collect. As the second report in the NPR series (this morning) noted, however, the contractors are hassling even people who do not owe back taxes--nor are those contractors required to tell people why they are calling--resorting in terrible abuses, as demonstrated starkly by the recordings played of several phone calls between a contractor and an individual allegedly owing the IRS money. Furthermore, and inexcusably in my book, the contractors do not have as much success in collecting as do regular IRS employees!
But the money the collection agencies keep doesn't come out of the IRS budget [remember, it comes directly from what they collect--Ed.], so the IRS can cut the part of its budget that used to pay for its own collectors. Everyone can claim that efficiency has been increased and costs reduced, thus trimming "fat" from the budget and giving people the illusion that waste has been eliminated. In fact, we have lesser quality service at greater expense--for if IRS employees made the collections, 100% of what they collected would go into the public coffers.
If all the contractors were required by the terms of their contracts to comply with the same laws and regulations that IRS employees must obey, I'd be less upset with the situation. But all the contracts are set up to benefit the contractors, ultimately at our expense, whether it be monetary or otherwise. This situation repeats itself in nearly every contracted-out situation of which I've heard.
Consider: virtually all of the contracts awarded in connection with the war in Iraq were awarded without competitive bidding. We've seen the terrible results of that in terms of the shoddy work that was done, let alone the work that was supposed to be done that was not. All of it was paid for with your money at exorbitant rates that far exceeded the value given for the price paid. And we collectively have no recourse to get the money back. The entire contracting situation has been set up in fact to legalize looting the public coffers--so where does that save us anything?
Another case in point: as reported widely (I've seen it on several news shows and in several newspapers during the past two weeks), companies who have been contracted to handle Medicare claims have managed to increase the complexity of the paperwork involved, increase the costs of processing the paperwork (hence increasing their own profit), and reduce the amount of services provided by measurable factors averaging 10%. So the contractors are making more money, the government is spending more money, and the public who receives the services is getting measurably less than it did before the services were contracted out to private companies.
I for one would rather spend a bit more to ensure the people providing services we demand are dedicated public servants whose goal is to do the best for the country than I would to pay people to line their own pockets at our collective expense. "Frugal" is NOT synonymous with "cheap." Businesses are in business to make money. Public servants are here to serve the public. Taxes ARE the price we pay for civilization. Let us spend our money more wisely so that we can keep on being "a government of laws and not of men." President-elect Obama's pledge to make the federal government run "smarter" seems in line with that goal. As such, it correctly defines the problem and is an excellent first step in undoing the damage that Reaganomics has done to this country over the past 20+ years.
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