December 11, 2006


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


NO MAGIC ELIXIR

In right-wing land the magic elixir is tax cuts for the rich and "privatizing" functions previously performed by the government. Then we all will live in Lollipop Land and drink from lemonade springs. Unfortunately, the right-wing magic elixir is pretty toxic. Tax cuts for the rich just produce massive deficits and massive inequality. Privatizing produces corruption and inefficiency. Paul Krugman looks at the results of privatizing under George W. Bush in this column linked at www.welcome-to-pottersville.blogspot.com:

It’s now clear that there’s a fundamental error in the antigovernment ideology embraced by today’s conservative movement. Conservatives look at the virtues of market competition and leap to the conclusion that private ownership, in itself, is some kind of magic elixir. But there’s no reason to assume that a private company hired to perform a public service will do better than people employed directly by the government.

In fact, the private company will almost surely do a worse job if its political connections insulate it from accountability — which has, of course, consistently been the case under Mr. Bush. The inspectors’ report on Afghanistan’s police conspicuously avoided assessing DynCorp’s performance; even as government auditors found fault with Landstar, the company received a plaque from the Department of Transportation honoring its hurricane relief efforts.