Has privatizing any Government service actually benefited the common tax payer?

As far as I care keep highway construction private , and out for bid, but put the maintenance back in the governments hands,you want to waste my tax dollars by putting that extra load of traction sand down on that icy highway you go right ahead.
NOT in a private for profit company that if they can get away with not plowing or sanding they most definitely will type thing.

Generally, government waste will always cost less than profit. I can’t think of a single thing where the public is better off with it being private.

I am mostly thinking services. Like Bridges, water, electric, internet, health care, and education. (note that most of these these are natural monopolys)

If you want a cheeseburger or a lamp the free-market is great for that.

I asked my husband this question a while ago. We couldn’t think of any previously state-owned infrastructure or service that’s better or cheaper since privatisation.

Ah but @Earthbound_Misfit and @johnpowell our right wing friends scream everything is better in privatization, I just would like any of them to show me where.

I haven’t studied it much, but my understanding is transportation via air and train were federally subsidized in the US for many years and have benefited from privatization. Public transportation at a city level seems to be largely private now as well, although I don’t know if it’s improved.

In many countries, a portion of the media is government controlled and I don’t think we’d want that here. So private media, for all it’s faults, is better than a controlled public alternative.

With privatized services you tend to see the cost right up front and immediately. Taxes are more spread out and general, but you pay either way. From working with government services, there is definitely some extensive overhead that comes with something being a public service. I’d guess 30% of a state employee’s time goes to filing reports of some sort to other state entities as required by law. It gets silly.

@funkdaddy US air travel has never been public, but rather it was heavily regulated and fares controlled to assure service to small locations, like Albuquerque or Fresno. And private train travel went out of business in the 60s and 70s, which is why we have Amtrak.

Privatized government services, like prisons, lead to abuses.

Some of my favorite television comes from national subsidized networks.

@funkdaddy having publicly owned radio and tv is what keeps them accountable to their audience. BBC is a good example. Private news corporations are twisted, or is Fox not a good enough example for you? The US justice system says that corporations are people and that ‘news’ doesn’t have to be factual. It has let the monster out.

You think filling in reports for private insurance companies takes less time? You are very mistaken. When a health care system is run for the benefit of the health of the nation and not to line the pockets of corporations and their shareholders, you get a much more cost effective system which has, predictably, better outcomes for the country.

IMO, it is a jump ball. Any service or function of the Government has an inherent cost to provide that service whether executed by a Government agency or a privately owned entity and from what I have read the end costs are pretty close to the same. The winners are the tax payers who no longer are taxed for services they may never ever use, the losers are the taxpayers who can ill afford those same services on the free market.

All said and done though, I maintain private sector goods and services will always cost us less in the long run. I will never forget all those times I saw Chicago Street and Sanitation workers fixing potholes in front of my office where there is one guy with a shovel, one guy with a broom, one guy with a tamper and 3 other guys just standing there pointing and sipping coffee. 6 guys….all union employees no less probably costing us $70.00 per hour each to slowly fill one pothole at a time. It was painful to watch.

Ah but @cruiser at least those pot holes got fixed,under private hands they ignore them until they are big enough to swallow a smart car,and in that mean time those holes have done countless damage to everyone else’s vehicles.

@zenvelo – I tried to qualify that, they weren’t directly public, but were heavily regulated in just about every way.

From Airline Deregulation Act

Since 1938, the federal Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) had regulated all domestic interstate air transport routes as a public utility, setting fares, routes, and schedules. Airlines that flew only intrastate routes, however, were not regulated by the CAB. Those airlines were regulated by the governments of the states in which they operated.

@cazzie – Private news corporations are twisted, or is Fox not a good enough example for you?

They’re all entertainment companies. They’re all biased. They’re all less so than most federal spokesmen these days.

You think filling in reports for private insurance companies takes less time? You are very mistaken.

I didn’t realize it was personal. I also didn’t mention anything having to do with healthcare. I’m guessing you mean saying 30% of state employee time is filing reports. What I mean is that 30% of the state salaries (paid by taxpayers) go towards filing reports that other state staffers then read, grade, and return while others consider changing the rules. The levels of oversight get silly. I work with a state agency that is 100% oversight and file reports to two other agencies every month. That statement is me sharing my personal experience.

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The question stated was “Has privatizing any Government service actually benefited the common tax payer?”... so I answered that. It was not my opinion and I really only have experience with US systems, so concentrated on those.

When referring to rail transportation, the entire service was mandated by regulation and afterwards service and costs improved… from wikipedia

Studies of the rail industry showed dramatic benefits for both railroads and their users from this alteration in the regulatory system. According to the Department of Transportation’s Freight Management and Operations section’s studies, railroad industry costs and prices were halved over a ten-year period

Whether the old system constituted a public system is up to you, but I think it belongs in the discussion. Removing the government from the industry seems to have helped the public at large, removed trucks from highways, and made rail a viable option going forward.

Rail also holds a significant pollution edge over trucks, that’s still good, right?

Similarly, deregulating air travel showed benefits

A 1996 Government Accountability Office report found that the average fare per passenger mile was about nine percent lower in 1994 than in 1979. Between 1976 and 1990 the paid fare had declined approximately thirty percent in inflation-adjusted terms. Passenger loads have risen, partly because airlines can now transfer larger aircraft to longer, busier routes and replace them with smaller ones on shorter, lower-traffic routes.

Regarding media, I was referring to state run media which in many places constitutes a majority of the options available. The BBC is great, but no media is free from bias, because it will always be made by people. It’s also funded primarily by taxing televisions ~$200/yr per television. It’s my feeling that such a tax would never be approved in the US.

I didn’t mention healthcare, because everyone in the US is doing it wrong, there is no good option right now. That said, I’m glad I don’t rely on the federally run veteran’s health system.

Again, I tried to answer the question. If this is just a way to vent and complain, great, just let me know so I don’t waste any more time trying to answer.

@SQUEEKY2 I would argue just the opposite having had 2 blown out tires from potholes be ignored so long they should be called sinkholes. It got so bad one year an Alderman went to Home Depot and bought asphalt patch with his own money and filled potholes on his free time. In a private free market, any company contracted to do that work and didn’t fulfill what was expected by said contract would not get be allowed to bid on that contract again….unless of course it was Chicago and you donated heavily to the mayors campaign war chest.

No, despite hype to the contrary, privatization is nearly always a scam to raid the public treasuries.

So should everything be public services?

I live in a country where alcohol is seriously controlled by the government. If I want a bottle of wine, I have to go to a state run monopoly that sells it. I don’t think that should be the case. I find it highly uncivilised.

@stanleybmanly When was the last time you paid $100.00 for a hammer or $600.00 for a toilet seat at Home Depot?

Oh really? A private contractor here in B.C did such a lousy job on one of our mountain highways called the Coquihalla they were told not to bid on it again.
Well the biding came around and this same contractor got that highway again so much for making sure these contractors do a safe adequate job.

And as union people getting $70 an hour I have never seen any union wage that high,in reality I would put money on those men were more in the $20 to $25 an hour range.

@funkdaddy If the private sector can’t do the same quality type job that the Government did ,then yes, our highways maintenance especially here in B.C is a freaking joke under these private contractors.

As I said I don’t mind keeping highway construction in the private sector and out to bid, but maintenance should go back in the hands of the Government seeing that the contractors do such a poor job at it.

So really we’re talking about one thing, highways in Canada.

Ok.

Not just the highways, our Provincial park system as well has been more costly under private contractors as to when the Government controlled them.

In some cases maybe putting it in the private sector such as highway construction might benefit the tax payer, but maintenance of any infrastructure system usually does the tax payer harm as to contractors doing such a poor job in order to save a dime type thing.
I mean if you’re going to waste my tax dollars by putting another load of salt/sand down on that icy highway go right ahead, instead of treating it(road sand) like gold dust.

@Cruiser. Are you agreeing with my statement about private entities ripping off the public treasury?

See article in link with multiple examples of how privatization does not benefit tax payers. I came upon this article because I was searching for articles that discussed the parking lot at the local medical center. I remember when the medical center first privatized its parking lots, the fee in the lot went from cheap or free to many dollars per day. There were articles (which was what I was searching for) in the paper about husbands who wanted to spend the day with the wife in the nursing home (at the medical center) but could not afford the parking fee now that it was privatized. The medical center parking fees is mentioned in this article.

Read on:http://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/14/business/off-the-shelf-privatized-doesn-t-mean-perfect.html

Sorry for the bad link. Try this: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/14/business/off-the-shelf-privatized-doesn-t-mean-perfect.html

Sorry – it should work above.

@jca Good article but our conservative friends will never change their minds about privatization is better,even when proven it isn’t.
Especially highway maintenance all you have to do is be on a highway that a private contractor is looking after to know privatizing certain things are not in the best interest of the average tax payer.

The goal of the private sector is to make profit. It benefits them to cut back on things like maintenance if it increases profits. They might also not pay a fair wage. I am betting that the road maintenance guys @Cruiser mentioned are not making 70 bucks an hour either.

@jca I have never heard of anyone on a road crew making that much unless it was over time on a holiday,most likely ,like I pointed out a few posts up anywhere from $20 to $25 an hour normally .

@SQUEEKY2: Yeah in the county I work for, a very wealthy county, the guys make about 40–50k.

The $70 an hour thing is to draw attention to how much cheaper privatization is for the average tax payer, but that isn’t true when their wage is twenty something an hour and not $70.

@stanleybmanly I am not agreeing or disagreeing as it can be vigorously argued both ways.

How about the space programs. Couldn’t get funding for research that pushes the whole of mankind forward, so now have to rely on the private sector for innovation and production.

I guess we’ll see how that works out. The only difference between that and other services is we’re seeing the whole thing play out in public.

@funkdaddy We wouldn’t have a space program if it weren’t for the initial NASA program which was completely tax payer funded. NASA costs a small fraction of the current defence budget. The NASA technology was always helped by outside contractors. It’s more now because there is more profit in it because it is far more diverse, with the end results privatised and profitable, for example, all the different satellites now in orbit. The space program needed the initial public funding. It was born out of the cold war and defence budget and now we have what we have because of that. We need public funding of research, technology and science.

@funkdaddy I am not saying all privatization is bad, construction, science, innovation, sure the private sector can do really well.
BUT things like highway maintenance has proven to drastically fail in the hands of the private sector, our very unsafe highways proves just that.
I really like when our right wing friends think if we talk bad about the privatization we all must be communists far from it but super tired of my tax dollars paying for these contractors who don’t give a shit about public safety just to save a buck.

@SQUEEKY2 Just a point of clarification. The private sector is not in charge of roadways and infrastructure…villages, cities, counties, states and the Federal Government are the governing bodies that oversee repair projects and ultimately the ones who are responsible for how safe or unsafe our infrastructure and roadways are.

Having been actively involved in concrete repair for over 33 years I can say with confidence that infrastructure repair is serious business that is held to pretty high standards of engineered specifications that guide every aspect of the repair process.

Another area that’s been privatized to much criticism: Prisons.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/28/how-for-profit-prisons-have-become-the-biggest-lobby-no-one-is-talking-about/

Well @Cruiser your right about townships and municipalities, they look after their own roads, but our highways and secondary roads are in the hand of private contractors and have been since the very early eighties,at least that is the case here in B.C and the contractors do a worse and worse job at sanding and snow plowing every year.