In case you hadn’t noticed, the U.S. government is for sale. It’s for sale to the highest bidder and for that price you get the entire Congress, with the president thrown in free.
The corporations have taken over our country. Politically connected corporations are now seizing day-to-day operations of the government for their own profit. This has come from the outsourcing of public functions to private contractors. Everyone wants a piece of the pie and the Bush administration is only too happy to oblige.
Government contracting has boomed under the Bush regime. The use of outside sources has increased 86% since good ol’ boy George has been in office. This contractor giveaway now totals nearly $400 billion a year. That’s billion, folks, with a “B”.
That $400 billion is what we are paying extra to contractors hired to do the work that the government is supposed to do. I wonder how much extra it would cost us if Bush managed to privatize our Social Security System.
The privatization of our government has been on the right wing Heritage Foundation’s things-to-do list since before Bush was selected as president.
On January 10, 2001 the foundation put out their domestic agenda called “Taking Charge of Federal Personnel”. It was a virtual roadmap showing how the Bush Crime Family could seize control of every government agency and use it for its own good. In appointing personnel to top positions, they stressed loyalty over expertise.
When first explained, privatization sounds good. After all, we all know that a business is run much more efficiently than is our government, but the bad thing is that businesses thinks only of their bottom line and not the good of the country.
The corporate community supplies support for our troops in Iraq. Cheney’s old firm Halliburton is the largest to do so. Its military contracts have increased by 600% under the hand of Bush and Company.
Even then Halliburton wasn’t happy. They resorted to gas-price gouging, delivering contaminated food and water and a lot of over-billing. Out of $10 billion in waste and over charges, Halliburton was responsible for $2.7 billion of that.
Halliburton was given lucrative no-bid contracts from FEMA for the rescue and rehabilitation of New Orleans. The money flowed like wine, but none of the billions seemed to get to the trouble spot of New Orleans.
Is it any surprise that Halliburton’s profits have increased 368% since Bush came to the office?
Lockheed-Martin is no slouch either. This defense contractor is receiving more federal funds than the Department of Justice.
These huge profits are the reason the government has no accountability or public scrutiny as part of this privatization drive of theirs. It is all about serving the interest of the corporations.
Actually when I look back, I think I was wrong – America is not for sale.
It has already been sold.
The California Curmudgeon
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