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The Privatization of Public Services, State by State
Donald Cohen, founder and executive director of In the Public Interest, a national resource center on privatization and responsible contracting, sends us this.
It seems there’s no public service or piece of property that private companies are not eyeing as potential revenue streams. While funding anti-government think tanks like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), companies like Corrections Corporation of America, Waste Management, Maximus, Intuit, Laidlaw, Northrup Grumman, Koch Companies, Macquarie Capital Advisers, Pinnacle West, and UnitedHealthcare are hoping to use government as their candy store.
They want to take over our roads, bridges, parking lots, water systems, college dorms, and prisons. And they want to deliver public services like transit systems, school cafeterias, trash and recycling pick up, mental health services and many others. The following is a quick scan of just some of the proposals.
Water
The Emergency manager of Flint, Mich., is considering selling off its water and sewer systems to the highest bidder. The systems are currently generating revenues for the city.
Long Island’s Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano’s proposal is proposing to privatize the county’s sewage treatment system. Mangano also announced the privatization of Long Island Bus company to Veolia Transportation.
The Texas Lower Colorado River Authority is selling 18 retail water and wastewater systems in the Hill Country and in its southeast service area to [Canada-based] Corix Infrastructure.
Schools
School districts across the country are planning to contract out custodial, clerical, cafeteria and bus services. In Michigan, home to the right-wing, privatization think tank, the Mackinac Center, lots of
school districts are moving forward with plans including Muskegon Heights, West Branch-Rose City, Rochester districts.
The real estate industry, seeing potential profits from the growth in charter schools, wants in. One company, Entertainment Properties, a real estate investment trust, primarily a movie theater landlord, now owns 34 charter-school properties and sees “a huge capacity to grow.”
Prisons
The Florida Senate failed to vote on a controversial proposal to private prisons in South Florida. A labor community coalition including AFSCME, Teamsters, the Justice Policy Center, Grassroots Leaders and the Police Benevolent Association mobilized members and press opposition. Perhaps the Gainesville businessmen who were sentenced to federal prison for paying kickbacks to the former secretary of the state department of corrections official after the prison canteens system was privatized had an impact.
Liquor
The liquor industry is pushing hard to take control of state systems that now generate funds for cash-strapped governments. Ohio Gov. John Kasich is privatizing the state’s liquor distribution system in a $1.4 billion dollar deal. The Idaho Federation of Reagan Republicans submitted a citizen’s initiative to the secretary of state’s office that would privatize liquor sales in Idaho and eliminate the state Liquor Division.
Michigan Gov. Snider is proposing to deregulate the state’s alcohol distribution system. The Michigan Liquor Control Commission generates an estimated $330 million for the state’s general fund. Snider’s Liquor Control Rules Advisory Committee is stacked with representatives from sectors that profit from alcohol sales.
It’s not all bad news. Record profits at state-owned liquor stores in Virginia “may have sounded the final death knell for Gov. Bob McDonnell’s proposal to privatize” them.
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10 Comments
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Privatization has been going on for years. Even the C.I.A. is 60% “outsourced”. Can you every imagine this for-profit CIA every developing information or analysis that would suggest that there should be no more wars, or that the economy can no longer afford 700 military bases overseas?
Why hasn’t the AFL-CIO developed any new political or organizational strategies to oppose Privatization but even supported Obama in supporting Obama’s Health Care Reform, that maintaining corporate profits?
Instead President Trumka ignored the unanimous support for “single-payer” demanded at the same convention that elected Trumka, 2009 in Pittsburgh, Pa.
The AFL-CIO, with 14 million dues paying members, has the financial and people power to implement new organizational and political strategies that could unite all working people into a all powerful organization that would defeat all the corporatist measures of Obama, and both Democratic and Republican Parties.
The many crises facing the vast majority of people in the U.S. A. today is this: The U.S. capitalist economy, in long decline for over 30 years, has now collapsed. It cannot be “bailed out” or restored to ever meet the economic needs of this vast majority of working people.
A break with the Democratic Party and Obama by the AFL-CIO and organized labor is essential. A new political party is essential.
Perhaps called the Solidarity Party, which would unite trade union organized and unorganized working people into an all-powerful
organization to defeat all the millions of corporate capitalism that massively contribute to both Republican and Democratic Parties and candidates.
The new party would fight for the economic needs of working people at every level of Federal, State, and local government with pro-labor candidates, not corrupted incumbent politicians, to take power. First principle of the Solidarity Party: accept no corporate funding or agendas that are destroying this country.
The long term goal must be build an economy that supports the economic needs of the people, not an economy to be looted for private profit maximization.
Some immediate demands to be made:
1 Stop the privatization of the public sector at every level of government.
2. Jobs in the public sector must be restored and created to employ the millions of unemployed.
3. End the wars for profit in the Middle East.
4. Progressive taxation must be implemented to restore adequate funding of essential public sector jobs needed to maintain society. Tax the rich and their corporations.
5. Mass media content control must be taken away from the control of corporate control, especially on PBS and NPR.
This last point must be started now with the AFL-CIO helping to produce and sponsor a nightly one hour national television program on PBS to inform and educate working people from the economic perspective of working people.
This is so important that every effort must be made, including legal demands for freedom of speech, that without this effort to change the dumb-downed, propagandized indoctrination forced upon us every day, nothing will be changed.
Jerry – You speak wisdom. I’ve been organizing against privatization in Chicago for a few years now and am having no success united the various unions who are all facing decimation via privatization – teachers, post office and librarians. Can we talk? tom@tresser.com
See htttp://www.publicassets.us
Jerry, you make a good start, for an independent party, based on unions and working people — the 99%! with some great ideas about what to stand for. Tom, I’m delighted to see you want to organize with unions. In your 2010 Green party campaign you promised to layoff 10% of the County workforce, and refused to take union money, as if it was the same as corporate. Perhaps you could partipate in union campaigns already going on in Chicago, against closing public schools, for instance?
Businees buy or aquire these goverment systems to make money, even if the have to increase user”s cost or cut down on service. They still look for government money to repair or cover cost, while they make money.
Texas tried this, it failed with hundreds of millions of tax dollars lining the pockets of Accenture and I’m sure some of that ending up in Republican legislator’s and Perry’s campaign chest. Now Texas wants to open the door of privatizing mental health services and allowing some company that expects to profit off the mentally ill by handing them the keys to a state hospital.
it’s a known fact that privatizing state&local jobs is a lose,lose for the munincipality,it.s all about doing away with employee benifits because private contractors are not obligated to provide or neg.for them.
Privatizing public domain is never a good idea. It actualy leads to more corruption and waste than when the municipalties handle it. We can keep things level and properous by watch-dogging our leaders and the choices made. Good government service starts at the town level.if it’s costing you $ 40.00 a month for treated water I’m sure a privatecontractor will cost you even more because you have little control over this party. Many times a town hall meting solved a problem in minutes, but you won’t have that power over “privateers” unless youget them to sign one awesome people empowered contract. That’s not likely either. outsourcing and such policies have weakened our economy and now everybody is scratcing their heads; how could this happen. Thec stand should have been made 40 years ago. now we have let big business and our congress turn a Democracy into a corportocracy that feeds the rich investers and bankers while hurting the worker. The lie that there are not enough high tech trained people to take that kind of job. America expects you to spend between $ 120 to $160,000 for a high tech college degree while we subsidize foreign students. If you are from rich folk you are goingto have a brutal bill each month before you buy anything else. Business will squander millions of dollars for a wise CEO so why don’t back our students from day one in college. They are cheap penny pinching hypocrites thatblubber about the need for lower wages and how can they maintain their700% profit. It’s a sick game ,but we have to fight it.
Prosecute, eliminate “MURDER- fraud- crime- injustice networks”= cruel tyranny= robbery machine = ROBBER- ISM; destroy society, justice, peace, continuing, on-going; relaying, penetrating (inc. civic non- profit); expanding; threat, coercion, victimization, deprivation, discrimination; unjust practices, manipulation, influence; bad legislation false excuses (e.g. private- public partnership, economic development, housing, school construction, transportation, abandonment of properties,
We started making good money, got lazy when it cam to unions and politics. This is the result. I wonder how many of us who served pre-outsourced army can relate. When I was in, along, long time ago, I policed the area, did k.p., cleaned toilets and barracks and whatever else was required to keep the military going. Now, we no longer have citizen soldiers. We have professionals. The pros no longer clean up after themselves. We have outsourced cleaning and cooking. Cleaning and cooking, and all that other stuff gave us a steady supply of soldiers, etc. to staff the military. No wonder our g.i.’s are traumatized. There are not enough replacements due to Haliburton making a ton of money from the government doing things we used to do for ourselves. Anyway, what I am getting to here is that outsourcing turned the Iraq/Afghanistan wars into drudgery and fiascos for our military. Outsourcing will do the same for all other government functions.
Republican/teabaggers are taking pages straight out of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf!” PRIVATIZE EVERYTHING. Control all government. Break up Unions and any other “people’s protective” services. Destroy the economy and have people begging in the street – making them subservient to Fascist Extremist causes.
THIS IS WHAT REPUB/BAGGERS WANT YOU TO VOTE FOR IN 2012
Well, to hell with them!! We live in America, NOT Nazi Germany, and we’re sick and tired of these greedy religious extremist hypocrites destroying our Democracy. We don’t need a War, THEY are KILLING AMERICA! Let’s all UNITE and BEAT THEM BACK to insignificance where they belong. No matter what — VOTE DEMOCRAT = OBAMA, the HOUSE and SENATE. PLEASE help save our country. DON’T BELIEVE THEIR LIES. They count on repeating lies over and over again so you’ll believe them. Don’t be FOOLED into voting AGAINST your own best interest. THEY MUST BE STOPPED, and it is left to us, the American People, to do so — OR our great country becomes a sequel to the Decline of the Roman Empire. NO NO NO!!!