CRAIGforCONGRESS

Missouri's 7th District, U.S. House of Representatives

  
 

 

 

Congressional Issues 2010
THE BURGEONING BUREAUCRACY

Immediately Cut and Privatize



The 112th Congress should:
  • eliminate the Cabinet-level Departments of
  • close down major independent agencies such as the Small Business Administration, the Corporation for National and Community Service, the Legal Services Corporation, and the Appalachian Regional Commission; and
  • terminate obscure independent agencies like the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the Japan–United States Friendship Commission, the Marine Mammal Commission, America’s Education Goals Panel, the State Justice Institute, and the United States Institute of Peace.
  • privatize the U.S. Postal Service and repeal restrictions on competitive mail delivery;
  • privatize Amtrak by selling the passenger rail service, including operations, maintenance, stations, rails, and trains, as a single unit and ending all federal subsidies;

  • privatize air traffic control by moving all operations to a private nonprofit corporation similar to Canada’s;

  • help privatize the nation’s airports, while ending federal subsidies;

  • privatize the nation’s seaports;
  • privatize federal electric utilities by selling the Tennessee Valley Authority and the four power marketing administrations to private investors;

  • privatize portions of the Army Corps of Engineers, such as hydroelectric dams, and transfer the remaining civilian activities to state governments
  • sell excess federal assets, including buildings, land, and inventory.
  • hasten privatization of military support services by allowing private operation of the entire military housing inventory, accelerating military utilities privatization, and giving the Pentagon more flexibility in the contracting-out process.


Explore the labyrinth of Government Bureaucracy


Privatization in a post 9-11 world 


Pundits and policy-wonks seem to use the word "privatization" in two different ways:

  1. Instead of Government workers building schools that government wants, government hires private contractors to build schools that government wants.
  2. Instead of the Government building the schools it wants, parents build the schools they want using the miracle of the Free Market.

Kevin Craig supports "privatization" in the first sense only as and when it serves as a stepping-stone to full privatization in the second sense. "Privatization" in the first sense might save a few dollars, but often locks out the possibility of saving much more, and of more effectively meeting the demands of consumers, by moving to full privatization. Privatization in the first sense is not the Free Market. It is often just cronyism.

Questions about government-managed "privatization"


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