For various reasons I don’t automatically think that contracting government work is a bad idea. If a reasonably empirical analysis suggests that we would benefit from transferring a job to the lowest bidder then I’m all for it. So that’s not why it concerns me that the GOP has shunted government jobs to a record-breaking swarm of private contractors.
The problem is that Republicans believe in privatizing but they don’t believe in oversight. In the grand feeding trough of Iraq the only oversight figure of any import was Inspector General Stuart Bowen. Most others, whistleblowers and inspectors who lacked Bowen’s personal Bush connections, had a tendency to find other work. It’s hard to understate the how important Bowen’s recent report to Congress would have been for ending the pointless waste of US resources, if the 109th Congress had bothered to listen to him. Instead, surprise, they tried to fire him. While Congress slept one unsupervised company managed to wreck a prison, a network of health clinics and the Baghdad Police Academy.
You find the same phenomenon everywhere you look. Read Steve Benen describe what happened when data showed that Republicans’ cherished voucher programs don’t work. Rather than change a whit, supporters ignored the data and canceled the studies. FEMA outsourced important jobs (cronies, natch) without making sure the contractors were up to the task. The near-pathological need that drives our vice president to classify everything up to and including his staff roster is nothing more than the modern right wing mentality taken to its disturbing extreme. Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay disgraced their party as a result of earlier decisions to stifle departmental Inspectors General and shutter Congressional Ethics Committees. Internal mechanisms failed to discourage or check the criminal instincts of DeLay, Bob Ney, Randy “Duke” Cunningham, David Safavian and a long list of others (including William Jefferson) so the Depart of Justice had to do it instead.
This is the central failure of our modern Republican movement. It’s the basic reason why even preferred policies like rebuilding Iraq, charter schools and the war itself devolve into embarrassing failures. Piss and fecal matter drip from the ceiling of “the most important security project in the country” while contractors, paid in full, sit back and shrug.
Stipulated that legitimate policy issues will keep me from supporting most Republican governments. As a supporter of the environment, social safety nets and universal healthcare, legitimate science, science education and reproductive choice the GOP seems to get everything wrong. It is pretty much a given that I will not vote for a GOP majority. What baffles me, looking over the hash the GOP makes of even its favored policies, is why anybody would.
Richard Bottoms
There are not bad Democarts.
There are no good Republicans.
The Rpeublicans are evil,even if some are less evil than others. Work with the Hagel’s when you have to than be as vicious in campaigning as you can to replace them with Democrats.
Consign this Christian Taliban cult of dolts to the dustbin where all of them belong from Olympia Snowe to Sam Brownback. Fuck them all.
ThymeZone
A sentiment many here share with you.
For the next two years, our main goal has got to be to keep these idiots from starting a war with Iran.
If you think things are bad now, just remember, they can get a lot worse.
Barrasso
I expect the republicants to be lying scumbags who steal govewrnment money and funnel it to private companies, it’s almost the definition of the party. I really am pissed that the dems aren’t pushing for independant offices of ethics investigatrors while they have the attention of the country.
Barrasso
Stupid typos manke me loo0k badn.
CaseyL
Once again I’m mystified why the Republicans ever win elections.
I’m not mystified why anyone votes for Republicans. There are always people who will vote for fear and ignorance.
But why does the country’s most fearful, most ignorant 30% keep deciding our political fate? Where is everyone else?
Rome Again
They always do, and I need a distraction from this madness. I can’t take it anymore. I think I told you I’m fairly prescient. All I see at the end of the road is a Mad Max movie.
Andrew
Throw in zombies and I’m in!
tBone
Tim, Tim, Tim. That only happened because Parsons relied too heavily on Iraqi subcontractors. If only we hadn’t gone out of our way to employ Iraqis, everything would be fine.
This has been today’s presentation of Darrell Theatre. Sponsored by Darrellade – is it in you?
Tsulagi
From the Kevin Drum link…
LOL. If that doesn’t just epitomize this administration in all things. Feces and urine flowing from the top screwing up everything below.
jake
Fixed.
Don’t call it liquid waste, call it the dark rich waters of democracy. And anyway, it’s the Iraqis fault. Or Clinton. Not ours anyway.
El Cruzado
Well, it’s worth repeating “Republicans are the party of those who don’t believe that government works and, when elected, prove it”.
Richard 23
It’s called privatization, moonbat. I suppose you’d rather nationalize everything like your buddy Hugo Chavez, you socialist.
Sometimes liberty is messy. Smells like…freedom.
Er, I’ll take a third floor office, please. In a different building, now that I think about it.
The Other Steve
Republicans believe in privatization, because it allows them to give political patronage jobs without having to deal with civil service exams and other oversight for qualifications.
As I said before the gOP is corrupt and immoral
Thomas
It never ceases to amaze me that people think there’s any major difference between Republicans and Democrats. What makes you think a Democratic administration would be any better? If you think everything was all rosy under Clinton, you’re just fooling yourself.
In general, all politicians do the same things. It’s just that the media, etc, tending liberal, tend to ingore more Democratic crap.
TenguPhule
Shorter Thomas: I have been in a Coma for the last six years.
Shorter Thomas II: I am also a fucking retard who needs to crib from Republican talking points.
TenguPhule
Untrue. The Difference is that when they’re identified, their party tries to kick them out.
stickler
Wow. The undead corpse of Ralph Nader can type!
What makes me think that? Well, I reached adulthood in time to live through the period 1993-2001. That administration managed to function a damned sight better than what we’ve seen since. You know, like the Onion said, the “long national nightmare of peace and prosperity…”
celcus
It is simply amazing how the modern Republican Party has chosen to model itself on the Louisiana Political system of the mid 20th century i.e. Huey Long et al.
Tsulagi
Now that’s funny. Apparently even Thomas now realizes Bush and his admin sucks. But he just keeps clinging to that “The Democrats are worse” teddy bear and can’t resist sucking on the victimhood tit. That evil MSM fails to nurture. A teddy bear and a tit, no Bill Bennett Republican manly man fails to leave home without them.
Adam Ierymenko
“What baffles me, looking over the hash the GOP makes of even its favored policies, is why anybody would.”
They claim that they will cut taxes.
Richard Bottoms
Richard Bottoms
But these fuckers do love the troops: