Republicans/Conservatives: What are the benefits of privatization other than union busting?

The benefits?

Well the major benefit to the corporations are,

Being able to get profit access from public entities which were previously unreachable.

That would also include having the public build or acquire the asset and not having the private enterprise invest in the asset.

example: turning operation of the Ohio Turnpike over tp private because they can supposedly

reduce costs of operation. Now this was built with public tolls with public acquisition for the benefit of the users, the public.

Now, for rent, supposed lower cost private enterprise will operate it without investment, providing a

profit the shareholders. That profit does not result in more money for the state but only moving it to private entities. It does not provide good paying jobs. It does not provide for infrastructure improvements, just operation and private profit.

There is NOTHING wrong with profit. Profit which was obtained through investment of capital in private enterprise for a private return.

There is a huge problem with public investment being exploited for private profit.

Using public investment (of which I am a shareholder) for private profit without some greater return on public investment is WRONG.

It amounts to theft of public resource.

I will not suggest that public operation of public assets can be done more efficiently but turning them over to private operators who take their cut off the top before providing services is no more efficient.

I have yet to see this put in place where the private operators do not return and complain later that the contract price is too low and that they need to change to maintain margin.

It sounds good to privatize public assets but in reality it is another method for the Republicans (because this is the party pushing for this) to reward the business contributors to political campaigns.

As a citizen I am a shareholder in our public assets.

I do not want the management of those assets in the hands of people no longer

accountable to the public.

Call me lib call me Democrat, but wanting to maintain control of assets which belong in part to me, as a member of the public, is the height of conservative economics.

There are only a few things I would privatize. The social security system needs to be fazed into private accounts over years so as not to hurt the ones already on it. The federal government has mis handled this badly for years and now the system is broke. The Post Office because government red tape costs so much money that they can't stay under budget. The Department of Education needs to be elated due to duplicate work. All states have their own Department of Education and they already make almost all of the rules for their school systems. The Department of Energy needs to Go because no one knows what the hell they really do. I am undecided on the Dept. of Agriculture. I think small farms still need them to survive.

In Louisiana most of the Garbage is already private and it works great. I pay less out of my pocket than what it would cost me if I lived in the City and they paid it. The bill just comes from the City instead of the garbage man. You know the City has to get their cut.

The Police, Fire, Military, etc. have to stay under the government. I wouldn't trust a private company with those.

I am a Libertarian - well not exactly but they are the closest thing to my beliefs.

I'm not either of those political parties but I'll give you 3 examples on what happened in my city when they privatized.

A few years ago they privatized the garbage collectors. Since that happened garbage collection has improved dramatically: they issued large new barrels on wheels with hinged covers to everyone, it's always picked-up on time, the streets are MUCH cleaner, and the city doesn't need to maintain a fleet of trucks.

In the past year the city has also privatized the cafeteria and janitors in all the public schools which has resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings for the city taxpayers and the savings are supposed to increase over the next couple of years. I've heard that the food is also better but I don't have any info on how the janitors are doing.

If privatizing saves the taxpayer money without any reductions in service or an inferior product than I say Privatize Everything!

Don't forget the prisons! There are stories from the bad old days, when firefighting was private, of fire crews passing by burning buildings because the owners weren't on the client list - seriously. It wasn't too long ago that a fire department (public) allowed a man's house to burn to the ground because he hadn't paid his dues "tax."

Then there's the judge who sentenced first time youth offenders to custodial sentences for minor crimes because he was getting kickbacks from the private company that was running the institution. Private firms are interested in making money, the public interest comes into consideration second, or third, or not at all. Privatizing certain services is an invitation to corruption.

Republicans think that profit should be made from everything; if someone isn't making a buck from an activity, then it shouldn't be pursued. Some people even want to privatize the water supply - they want to OWN something that falls from the sky.

Like many people I have a pension plan. It pays better per dollar paid in the SS. It isn't scheduled to go broke any time in the near future. It isn't run by the government and is funded with Wall Street investment. Each participant gets an annual report and the fund looks to be very healthy. It can't be controlled by congress and they can't use its funds for any other purpose. There are many pension funds out there and most are healthy. The ones that are not are union pension plans. There have been private garbage collectors for ages. Most places have volunteer fire departments. The volunteers buy better FF equipment. These go back to the 19th century. No need to start. The city where I now live does not allow private garbage collection and nobody is happy with their service. A little research would help some of you liberals with your superior education to be more informed.

Your question is too obtuse to give a definitive answer because you do not actually state what is being privatized. A general answer would be that it is a proven fact that the government does not do anything in a more cost effective or efficient manner than the private sector.

Edit: I would never advocate for the privatization of police and fire. These are not institutions where you would want profits placed above public safety. I think you will find that most conservatives would agree. As for garbage collection. the majority of it is privatized. Individual companies bid on city contracts to perform the service. A better example for argument would be the postal service. The success of entities like FedEx and UPS make this a very viable question given the negative cost to taxpayers of operating the us postal system. Like garbage collection the postal system could be contracted out to private entities and operated in a more cost efficient manner. The detractor argument would be in relation to maintaining delivery standards, especially in remote areas.

MTS - Manitoba Telephone Systems. Was a socialist type utility. Our provincial government (Gary Filmon at the time) followed their conservative nature & privatized, much to the chagrin of a good chunk of our citizens. Many more simply didn't care one way or the other.

3 months ago, we had an issue with our land line, $30 per 15 minute block of time on the phone to their help desk was added to our bill.

Anyway, I'm not making an argument for or against privatization, just letting you know how ONE of these deals worked out for Joe Bloe Citizen.

And what about the jobs that went out of province with that???

PS: Our mayor, Sam Katz, has also suggestion privatization or a blend of such for our drinking water....WTF?? Scary thought. I'd rather have private corporate cops (still THE MAN to me, no matter which way you slice it) than my drinking water privatized.

Private sector enterprises have to compete with each other to keep costs down and maximize efficiency. They actually have to produce something customers actually want in order to earn revenues. On the other hand, the government produces nothing but paperwork, and gets its revenues by confiscating the earnings of private citizens via the income tax laws. Interesting that you would address your question only to Republicans when there are Democrats who don't want socialism.

So you ACTUALLY wonder how YOU being allowed to own things might benefit anyone who might not be a Republican or conservative? Well, that certainly proves you really are a Democrat.

Police ARE privatized in some places. They get superior results and cost less. Fire departments are OFTEN private. They get superior results and cost less. MOST garbage collection is private. Seriously, you need to stop assuming the world runs like your liberal cloister. It doesn't. It runs BETTER.

Logical imperative DEMANDS you assume we'd be better-off if we were forced to get all of our FOOD through the government. Why didn't you ask about that?

Of course you DON'T think the single MOST IMPORTANT thing should be "public." Pretty-much proves you're unable to reason consistently, doesn't it? Yep. You're a Democrat all right.

Have you seen what happens when corrupt unions go on strike and refuse/block garbage pickups?

Really shouldn't be that hard to figure out why having responsible people doing that job would be an advantage.