Liane Hansen: In an unexpected move this past week, the
Bush Administration announced a plan to privatize thousands
of Government jobs over the next several years. Under the
initiative, private contractors will be able to compete
with current Government employees for up to 850,000
non-management positions. There have been efforts to
downsize and privatize the Federal workforce in previous
administrations, including President Bill Clinton, but
labor unions say this plan signals an anti labor union
attitude. In the Bush White House, the Office of Management
and Budget argues that it's intended to save money and
improve government efficiency. How much money can be saved
is the subject of dispute. According to Paul Light,
[Director of the Center for Public Service] at the
Brookings Institution.
Paul Light: We don't have really good data on whether we
actually have long-term savings; it's all really quite
sketchy. There is some limited data which suggests the
private sometimes saves up to 30% of costs, but we're not
exactly sure what's going on. They may low-bid to get the
contract, and once the Federal Government denudes itself of
its capacity, they start ratcheting up their costs. The
Federal Government is surrounded by an empire of
quasi-permanent private contractors without whom the
Federal Government could not do its job. We estimate that
they're are roughly three private contractors for every full-time Federal employee, the Bush proposal...
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