Why Government Should not Contract Out

Long ago I wrote up a page on my site as to why the Businesses and Government should not contract out on a routine basis http://www.taphilo.com/tom/contracting-out.shtml. An AP news article on Monday the 24th of October 2005 talked about the small businesses that are getting the dregs from the cleanup / rebuilding barrel of Hurricane Katrina.

 

One reason stated was that a company who had a contract objected to having their per-yard fee being public since it was a business secret. That is true enough. It could hurt them if it was known what they are being paid per yard to haul away debris. Their competitors could underbid and take away business (and profit! Duh!).

 

This, however, points up that the least cost provider will NEVER be known to the public since any company can throw any feature / cost / item into a business secret category and have it not be public - so it cannot ever be compared.

 

The laws should be changed that if services are contracted for on a routine basis - and every year there is hurricane clean-up so it is an ongoing forever thing - they should be Government paid employees and thus get Congressional and people oversight.

 

The argument that President Bush (and others) has put forth that only "inherently governmental" services remain in Federal Workforce is garbage - if the government is the only one providing or paying for the service then IT IS GOVERNMENTAL and should not be contracted out.

 

If "free enterprise" was truly willing to provide the service directly to people (or state / local) without going through the Federal Government they would have. Since the Federal Government is the one contracting for it by definition that means it is "inherently Governmental" and should not be contracted out.