The 112th Congress should:
- eliminate the Cabinet-level
Departments of
- close down major independent
agencies such as the Small Business Administration, the Corporation
for National and Community Service, the Legal Services Corporation, and
the Appalachian Regional Commission; and
- terminate obscure independent agencies like
the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the Japan–United States
Friendship Commission, the Marine Mammal Commission, America’s
Education Goals Panel, the State Justice Institute, and the United
States Institute of Peace.
- privatize the U.S. Postal Service and repeal
restrictions on competitive mail delivery;
-
privatize Amtrak by selling the
passenger rail service, including operations, maintenance, stations,
rails, and trains, as a single unit and ending all federal subsidies;
-
privatize air traffic control by moving all operations
to a private nonprofit corporation similar to Canada’s;
-
help privatize the nation’s airports, while ending
federal subsidies;
- privatize the nation’s seaports;
-
privatize federal electric utilities by selling the Tennessee
Valley Authority and the four power marketing administrations to
private investors;
- privatize portions of the Army Corps of Engineers, such as
hydroelectric dams, and transfer the remaining civilian activities to
state governments
- sell excess federal assets, including buildings, land, and inventory.
-
hasten privatization of military support services by
allowing private operation of the entire military housing inventory,
accelerating military utilities privatization, and giving the Pentagon
more flexibility in the contracting-out process.
Explore the labyrinth of Government
Bureaucracy
| Real-Life Example: Sandy
Springs, Georgia
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Privatization in a post
9-11 world
Pundits and policy-wonks seem to use the word "privatization"
in two different ways:
- Instead of Government workers building schools that
government wants, government hires private contractors to build
schools that government wants.
- Instead of the Government building the schools it wants, parents
build the schools they want using the miracle of the Free Market.
Kevin Craig supports "privatization" in the first sense only
as and when it serves as a stepping-stone to full privatization in the
second sense. "Privatization" in the first sense might save a
few dollars, but often locks out the possibility of saving much more, and
of more effectively meeting the demands of consumers, by moving to full
privatization. Privatization in the first sense is not the Free Market. It
is often just cronyism.
Questions
about government-managed "privatization"
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