A Reader on Privatization and the Common Good

A reader who wishes to remain anonymous sent me a list of failures by the GW administration. I won’t reproduce the list, but rather some of the message that accompanied it:

In looking at the list I think one clear common thread to his policy initiatives is the attempt to privatize government functions. The social security debate was the most obvious example, but one sees the same trend in his appointments of business leaders to regulate their own industries, his letting of enormous contracts with huge private companies in Iraq, to the structure of his Medicare D policy, to a tax system which skews benefits to the top 10%, and particularly the top one half of one percent. Perhaps the issue is too polemical for your site, but is it not fair to query whether the private sector can actually compete with well-trained, experienced bureaucrats with a sense of the common good?