Bush plans to privatize federal public service

The administration of President George W. Bush has announced plans to lay off up to 850,000 federal public employees (about half of all federal public employees) over the next few years and to tender their work to the private sector.

The administration claims that it is acting to ensure the lowest possible costs for government services, but opponents accuse the government of attempting to hamstring public sector unions and of putting their ideology ahead of the well-being and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of loyal, long-time federal workers.

Studies of other privatization initiatives in the United States and Canada have failed to produce evidence of the financial savings or improved services that the Bush government is promising.

Professor Elaine Bernard of Harvard University says the economic arguments for privatization have long been discredited, but that it keeps getting resurrected because someone stands to make money from it.

"Privatization is a little like a zombie," she said. "A zombie, as you may know, is dead and is suddenly raised from the grave – but you can’t kill it because it’s already dead. Privatization is intellectually dead; it’s unsupported by logic or evidence but every time you bury the case, it comes up again."