Privatizing: The theft of our tax dollars

[SHRED]

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"Hurry up boyz and soak Uncle Sam for all you can... we got about a year to go."

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October 24, 2007
State Department Use of Contractors Leaps in 4 Years
By JOHN M. BRODER and DAVID ROHDE

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 — Over the past four years, the amount of money the State Department pays to private security and law enforcement contractors has soared to nearly $4 billion a year from $1 billion, administration officials said Tuesday, but they said that the department had added few new officials to oversee the contracts.

It was the first time that the administration had outlined the ballooning scope of the contracts, and it provided a new indication of how the State Department’s efforts to monitor private companies had not kept pace. Auditors and outside exerts say the results have been vast cost overruns, poor contract performance and, in some cases, violence that has so far gone unpunished.

A vast majority of the money goes to companies like DynCorp International and Blackwater USA to protect diplomats overseas, train foreign police forces and assist in drug eradication programs. There are only 17 contract compliance officers at the State Department’s management bureau overseeing spending of the billions of dollars on these programs, officials said.

Two new reports have delivered harsh judgments about the State Department’s handling of the contracts, including the protective services contract that employs Blackwater guards whose involvement in a Sept. 16 shooting in Baghdad has raised questions about their role in guarding American diplomats in Iraq.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/24/washington/24contractor.html?em&ex=1193371200&en=901576c694354719&ei=5087%0A

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. We should hold up our corrupt system to the world and say, "see

here, this is how it is done, this is democracy at its finest" pass the freedom fries if you please.

[razors edge]

2. This is what happens

when Corporations are let of the hook for paying for their own protection rackets overseas.

The rich will always have a voice in tax allocation, the wage earners never will.

For 130 years they had to pay for the military to secure their predatory practices, and not wanting to pay more kept them in check, somewhat.

Now we pay for it and they can not only push for outlandish spending to secure the raw materials for their profits, they can also partake in higher profits from carrying out these endeavors.

Trillions in debt.

Social Security reserves for the baby boomers spent.

No real social programs supplied by the Feds.

What are we actually getting for that 25% of our income?

Time for the Corporate entities to pay the bill for the privilege of access to our labor and markets.

[SHRED]

3. well said

[Beerboy]

4. This reads like a stock-tip...

might've been killer 18 mos. ago, might still be holding, but it's time to move some asset.

[unblock]

5. piratization is a restoration of patronage, circumventing the civil service act

on upon a time in america, politicians would fire government employees wholesale and replace them with cronies, dole the jobs out as favors or negotiating chits, etc.

this form of corruption was largely addressed with the civil service act, which protected non-political employees from this kind of treatment.

piratization is a way around this, so the good ol' corruption from the bad days can happen again simply by outsourcing the government's work to a favored private company.