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DEL.ICIO.USThe dreaded ‘outsourcing’ word
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia will begin privatizing much of its technology services, shifting about 500 state employees to private companies, Gov. Sonny Perdue announced Tuesday. The shift will also mean that about “200 or so” employees will be laid off and other jobs will be consolidated as employees leave.
Former Gov. Roy Barnes proposed to consolidate all of Georgia’s telecommunications, then valued at $1.8 billion, under a single private contractor but he was defeated and the idea never got past the bidding stage. Perdue’s approach will be to break the contract into smaller pieces.
The bidding will be open not only to Georgia companies and to those in the U.S., but to global competitors as well.
My belief is that virtually everything government does, except for decision-making positions affecting our liberty and property, should be privatized. Technology certainly would be at the top of the list. There’s no way government can maintain the edge needed, or amass the expertise required in the event of a large-scale crisis in operating systems. Better to buy those services in the private sector.
The same is true, of course, in traditional functions of government, like transportation. The Georgia DOT should be composed of personnel with the expertise to write and manage contracts, to assess performance, and to hold private-sector companies accountable. All of the expertise needed to design and build roads or operate buses, trains or planes is available in the private sector.
Perdue’s likely to catch flak if winning bidders on technology services are located in Calcutta, thus triggering the dreaded “outsourcing” fear. But if the contracts are properly written and managed, the location of the company providing the service is unimportant.
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By jbmlaw
December 14, 2007 8:59 AM | Link to this
Merry Christmas all. This site comes to life only two days after Jim offered the topic.
I am amazed me that so many people – Leviathan apologists, mostly leftists of course, along with a smattering of morality police - oppose efficiency in government. “Government” is not, or at least should not be, a jobs program. An extraordinarily small number of government employees execute substantial political decisions – many are mere space fillers for empire-builders.
My primary complaint with Leviathan does not arise in discussions of efficiency, but rather when it does that which ought not be done at all. Most state employees are specialized policemen; not policemen who actually facilitate public safety, but policemen who have one particular narrow area to enforce, a function of unbridled legislation. Abolition of all would have almost no measurable effect on the public weal, other than the obvious reduction in need for taxation. Do we really need an Insurance Department, to cite one of the better-administered sections of state government, or on the federal level, a Federal Trade Commission or Securities and Exchange Commission, entities whose only raison d’etre is to file civil lawsuits?