Republican myth: Private Sector is inherently efficient

The great Republican myth: private enterprise is inherently efficient.

No, it’s not.

Private enterprise is focused solely on the bottom line. What drives efficiency in the private sector is market-driven competition.

If you give folks no-bid contracts on a cost-plus basis, you’ll get reamed – as we have been reamed by Blackwater, Halliburton, Parsons, and every other contractor in Iraq. Who cares if the materials are sub-standard and the workmanship is shoddy? I made money for my stockholders which is my ONLY obligation! You want me to be efficient and effective? You better provide plausible competition!

Publicly-held companies owe a LEGAL obligation only to the stockholders. If they can make money by providing no value-added product or service, so much the better. Privately-held companies are bound by NO legal constraints - their sole focus is on enriching the owners! This is not a bad thing, but it makes a lie of the Republican shibboleth that private enterprise is inherently efficiency.

In the absence of a market, government regulations can prod efficiency.

You want to get something in return for the $ you're paying on a no-bid contract? You better have some iron-clad controls in place!

You want the product to be non-polluting? Impose external, regulatory requirements on the entire industry. Only then will all players have an interest in providing efficient business and manufacturing processes to achieve the mandated requirements.

We do NOT live in Adam Smith's ideal market. We never have. We never will. Government does have a role in shaping the market to serve the public good, while at the same time enabling private enterprise to thrive!

How many years did we give Big Oil an "oil depletion allowance"? This was far from the unfettered market at work.

Parsons, KBR, Halliburton, Blackwater... we've designed a contracting system that invites abuse, that comes close to guaranteeing we'll get little or nothing for our $... all in the name of a mythical private-sector efficiency. It doesn't have to be this way!

Stop the madness!