Privatization is a mess as it is currently configured. Everything is wrong with it. It ushers in divided authority and divided responsibility for getting the work done. It sets the stage for finger pointing, and the dodging of consequences for failures, and in many cases it actually doubles the costs due to duplication and conflict this divided authority creates.
Privatization can work wonders where the contracting company is given full authority over the entire mission. If the contractors, as is the case now, are only lackeys and butt boys for the bureaucrats doing their work for them, while they sit on their butts, cashing their paychecks for doing nothing, the whole thing is a waste of time and money and we end up worse than we were before.
The fault is Congress for not writing the absolute guidelines for all outsourcing and "privatizations." The Executive Branch cannot be trusted to write those guidelines or supervise any part of the privatizations.
Congress must have the total oversight, and these companies must understand their contract is with Congress, NOT with the Executive Branch. The oversight relationship of Congress must be the same whether the work is being done by an "agency" of the government, or by a private company.
Congress must treat these contractors just the way it should treat government agencies. That is the only way any privatizations of any of the work of the government can occur effectively.
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