Does this sound anything like Florida?

[Rita]

.
Mitch is alienating a lot of his fellow republicans in his state with his handing over of public programs/assets to his cronies for private management. It would be interesting to see if he also gave them any incentives.


Indiana's bumpy road to privatization

The disparate effects underscore the risks of handing control over public services to the private sector. Whether the approach will ultimately improve services and save money remains a matter of fierce debate in Indiana. But the state's experience shows that without adequate safeguards, privatization can compound the very problems it is designed to correct: bureaucratic burdens, perceptions of influence-peddling and a lack of competition.

Critics say that in Indiana, the privatization process barreled forward with little public input and was marred by the appearance of conflicts of interest. Despite the massive nature of the changes he was proposing, Daniels insisted he did not need legislative approval. And the only public hearing occurred after he announced he would proceed with the project.

Key players involved in the process had ties to Affiliated Computer Services, the company that benefited the most from the deal. Mitch Roob — a Daniels appointee who ran the state's Family and Social Services Administration when it awarded the contract — was a former ACS vice president.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-indiana-privatize-20110624,0,3676979.story

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[Andy A]

In a word, no. What it sounds like is people gripeing about any "privatization" at all. Of course we could always go the other way and "socialize" everything...like Greece.

 

[beachmouse]

Can I say following the Jeb! Bush privitaztion plan. (Since emmulated by many others in this state.)

 

[poppy]

In a word, no. What it sounds like is people gripeing about any "privatization" at all. Of course we could always go the other way and "socialize" everything...like Greece.

Is this the "only" comparison you can muster?

 

[idlewind]

Is this the "only" comparison you can muster?

It is the most telling.

 

[30ashopper]

From the article, it' sounds like the biggest problem they ran into was corruption surrounding the contracts - i.e. corruption in government. People seem to loose sight of the fact that this problem would not exist if government wasn't subsidizing what should be an entirely private sector business. This bad habit drives up costs as well. Look at the student loan program, do you think schooling would cost as much as it does if government weren't writing all those checks? The same goes for healthcare. Government can 'regulate', but it should rarely 'provide'.

 

[Zebraspots]

The problem is that there are not adequate safeguards, so privatization ends up being more expensive than the government.

Bureaucracy and corruption do not solely exist in government and the chickens rarely prosper when the fox is paid to both guard the henhouse and report on his own work.

 

[30ashopper]

The problem is that there are not adequate safeguards, so privatization ends up being more expensive than the government.

Bureaucracy and corruption do not solely exist in government and the chickens rarely prosper when the fox is paid to both guard the henhouse and report on his own work.

I question that statement. Care to elaborate? I can provide examples of how this is not the case.

 

[beachmouse]

Look into Jeb!s fiasco of oursourcing a lot of human resources and human resources software applications and see how much that went over budget in both cost and time.

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2005-03-10/news/0503100163_1_convergys-outsource-state-jeb-bush

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/12/30/State/Did_the_savings_balan.shtml

In July, Corrections Secretary Jim Crosby pled guilty to felony charges for accepting kickbacks in exchange for getting a friend hired by the commissary vendor.

This was a painful revelation because the Bush administration had boasted for years about the success it had in outsourcing the prison commissary system.

Crosby's downfall came after a particularly difficult 2005.

The rollout of Bush's most ambitious single contract, handing over all state personnel functions to private company Convergys, went terribly.

The company repeatedly stumbled in cutting paychecks for state employees or accurately providing employee benefits.

Compounding the controversy were allegations that a Convergys' subcontractor shipped state employees' personal information to India for data processing.

 

[Zebraspots]

That was what the article said and what Rita quoted.

Examples given in the article included them manipulating data to show they had earned bonuses, staff dumping files to reduce their workload backlog, and their error rate doubling.