Showing posts with label privatization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label privatization. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 07, 2011

That worked out well, don't you think?


There is no governmental program so complex, no public-policy wicket so sticky that a Republican administration can't fix it with two magic words:

"Privatize it!"

That is because gummint is evil. Gummint employees are the devil. Private firms are always more competent -- and cheaper. Because the free market was ordained by God Almighty Himself. It's in the Bible.

Somewhere in the back.

It's also in The Conscience of a Conservative. Somewhere in the front.

UNFORTUNATELY for the magical thinkers on the right -- especially here in the Cornhusker State -- the Omaha World-Herald has this little report on a reality based audit of Gov. Dave Heineman's child-welfare privatization initiative:

Nebraska's child welfare costs have increased by about 27 percent after the state undertook a controversial privatization initiative, according to a state audit released Wednesday.

State Auditor Mike Foley unveiled the audit at a hearing before the Legislature's Health and Human Services Committee, which is investigating the privatization effort.

"This audit points to a critical lack of accountability," Foley said. "The consequence to the Nebraska taxpayers has been dramatic, including tens of millions of dollars in increased costs for child welfare services and a conspicuous lack of financial accountability that effectively frustrates any hope of transparency with regard to the expenditure of related public funds."

(snip)

An analysis by the Omaha World-Herald in July found that the state paid contractors 50 percent more than planned and overspent its budget by $30.5 million for the fiscal year that ended June 30.

HHS made three unplanned infusions of money and repeatedly front-loaded payments to contractors, a practice that optimistically anticipates costs going down as the months go by, the analysis found.

State Sen. Amanda McGill said: "That report was scathing. The tough part is figuring out what to do about it. "

I DON'T KNOW about you, but I smell a socialistic, liberal smear job in all this. There was a plant, I tells ya!

Commerniss infiltrators in the Department of Health and Human Services purposely messed up Governor Dave's brilliant free-market, solutions-based solution to make a right-thinking conservative look bad. Yeah, that's the ticket!

Is Alger Hiss still dead? Just checking.

Never fear. There is a free-market fix for the free-market fix -- of that, I am confident. Perhaps the Heineman Administration can take some free-market lessons from history and, in the process, turn a public burden into a profitable venture.

I humbly submit one idea that has survived the currents and eddies of long history, and with private-sector business acumen could save Nebraska taxpayers a pretty penny while radically reducing the drain on society from the parasitic poor and the chronically incorrigible. Here's a succulent excerpt from the proposal:

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.

I do therefore humbly offer it to public consideration that of the hundred and twenty thousand children already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one-fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle or swine; and my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore one male will be sufficient to serve four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year old, be offered in the sale to the persons of quality and fortune through the kingdom; always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends; and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.

I COULD BE WRONG, but I think the Republicans will eat it up.