Smaller Government Equals Bigger Profits
AFSCME in Action | With senior political strategist Donna Brazile, who moderated a panel featuring activists from across the nation, during the AFSCME Leadership Conference, held in June in Washington, D.C.
Photo Credit: Rick Reinhard
Message from the Secretary-Treasurer
By William Lucy
Smaller government and lower taxes. Together, they form the cornerstone of Republican ideology. And when it comes to George Bush, Dick Cheney and other devotees, smaller government is code for using more contractors to manage functions traditionally carried out by public service workers.
All of this happens under the guise of improving services and making certain operations more "businesslike," as if the private sector has cornered the market on efficiency.
In the end the government gets ripped off while taxpayers end up paying much more for much less.
Look at consultant Booz Allen Hamilton, a global contractor with 19,000 employees and clients on six continents. The Department of Homeland Security awarded the company a no-bid $2 million contract in 2003. By December 2004, payments had ballooned past $30 million. By that time, Homeland Security lawyers had determined that Booz Allen Hamilton was performing work that was well beyond the scope of the original contract and recommended opening the bidding to other companies.
However, an entire year passed before that happened, and by then, payments to Booz Allen Hamilton had risen to $73 million under a second no-bid arrangement. When July of this year rolled around, the federal government — that means you and me — had paid the company $124 million. And it all began with a no-bid $2 million contract. Good work if you can get it.
No Competition, Big Money
These situations aren’t rare. In fact, one out of every two dollars spent on 2006 federal contracts was awarded with little or no competition, according to the recent congressional report "More Dollars, Less Sense: Worsening Contracting Trends Under the Bush Administration." Last year, the report says, government contracting passed the $400 billion mark for the first time ever, with defense contractor Lockheed Martin raking in the most at $31.5 billion. Clear evidence of the administration’s version of new math: More privatization equals bigger profits for their corporate friends.
The administration’s antics mirror the words of Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), who insulted all public service workers when he said he’d like to shrink the government down to the size that he could "drown it in the bathtub."
Along with state-based free market organizations, Norquist’s group is behind the so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) initiatives that have appeared coast to coast. TABOR laws force governments to drastically reduce spending, prompting deep and irreversible cuts in vital services.
Americans for Tax Reform Looks the Other Way
Groups like ATR constantly decry the size of government and criticize what they consider outlandish wastes of taxpayer dollars. Yet, when it’s time to speak up in the face of obvious thefts like the Booz Allen Hamilton scandal, these groups — and Bush administration loyalists — are strangely silent.
In truth, the smaller government/lower taxes crowd actually has another agenda, one that does not have a thing to do with providing relief to the average taxpayer. They know that a smaller government means a windfall for business. After all, the fact that government no longer provides a service does not mean that the service has suddenly become unnecessary. Somebody still has to provide it. That "somebody" is likely to be a government contractor — and these days, it doesn’t hurt if it’s one with good connections to the Bush administration.
Supporting smaller government and lower taxes should also mean opposing profiteering by contractors. We must challenge the hypocrisy of those who are using our tax dollars to enrich Big Business.
