Budget Debate is Not About Taxes, It's About Outsourcing Public Services

[marmar]

from OnTheCommons.org:




Budget Debate is Not About Taxes, It's About Outsourcing Public Services
Iraq War shows us the huge profits corporations reap when they take over the role of government

By Camille Gage


The budget negotiations that led to the recent shutdown of the state government in Minnesota, where I live, are about much more than money. It’s even more than a battle over the role of taxes in society, or over social issues like stem cell research, a ban on which the Republican majority disingenuously attached to the budget bill.

If you look carefully at the other states that have been embroiled in controversy this year – states like Wisconsin, with the long battle over collective bargaining, and Michigan, where emergency managers have been appointed by the Governor to take over control of struggling towns and school systems—a pattern emerges.

The battles in these states—and the high-stakes debate about raising the federal debt limit just brokered in Washington—are part of a much larger ideological fight over the future privatization of services currently performed by government. It is a fight to open enormous new markets and opportunities for potential profit—profits that will be paid for directly by taxpayers.

For an example of how this might play out one need look no further than the war in Iraq. For the first time ever, much of the support work that had for generations been performed by the military was outsourced, almost all of it to a handful of companies that profited mightily from the war. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://onthecommons.org/budget-debate-not-about-taxes-its-about-outsourcing-public-services

[indurancevile]

1. knr. this is a commonality in everything going on now; the theft of the public commons.

[ananda]

2. That is so right.

And the results will be just horrendous.

[nxylas]

4. The "Big Society" as it's being called in Britain

Cameron's big idea is volunteers doing the jobs that government should be doing. Satirist Armando Iannuci tweeted "I want to run my own police force", which apparently led to a massive discussion on Twitter about where the force should be located, what laws it should enforce etc.

[bemildred]

3. Shock Doctrine is what it is, plain and simple. nt