Moorestown Democrats

Everything Moorestown, from a Democratic point of view.

 

Make a Donation

Please support the Moorestown Democratic Committee.

Amount:   USD

Privatization - It is worse than you think PDF Print E-mail
Written by Jonathan Eron   
Monday, 12 July 2010 16:18

When I was on counsel, people were always pushing privatization. I was told, privatize the water system and save money. Of course, had we sold out to New Jersey American our water rates would have skyrocketed. I was told, privatize trash pick up. Having represented a number of trash companies, I knew the trick there - low prices on the initial contract, slam the town on the renewal. Privatization does not work, it is expensive, it is inefficient and it leads to corruption. No wonder our Governor favors it.

A word from State Sen. Loretta Weinberg

http://www.bluejersey.com/user/Senator%20Loretta%20Weinberg

Privatizing government: This is more of the same from the Christie administration. Undermine our public school system, our public employees, our public TV network, and then parcel out government to private industry. Is that like the private industry successes of the Parsons' Adventure or EnCap or Xanadu?  But the most appalling point I read about the report was that the government should get out of the pre-school business and maybe increase class size from an average of 15 to 22. I have not seen the whole report and will today, but if that note is correct, I guess Christie is planning to make one of his campaign comments into a self-fulfilling prophecy - "Pre-School is Baby Sitting!" Then of course, if we privatize government, we can really cut taxes and just charge "user fees" to everyone. You can bet these ideas will be fought by some of us (and I think the majority of us) with full battle gear.

A word from Jason Springer

Christie helping the unemployed by firing people.

http://www.bluejersey.com/diary/16169/christie-helping-the-unemployed-by-firing-people

Sometimes the Christie logic completely escapes me. Take this recommendation from the Christie privatization team:

The task force also said New Jersey's 18 career centers to help the unemployed with job training and searches could be privatized.

So the way the Christie administration is going to help the unemployed is by firing more people? Really?
 

4 Comments

  1. avatar Jonathan Eron makes this comment

    Tuesday, 13 July 2010

    Because It Worked So Well Last Time by: Jason Springer Mon Jul 12, 2010 at 06:15:22 PM EDT Einstein used to say that Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The privatization task force seems to be looking to repeat, rather than learn from past mistakes: The task force recommended finding a private contractor to operate the Trenton War Memorial, which includes an 1,800-seat concert hall. But apparently we've already been down this road and their assumptions fly in the face of what really happened: A previous deal allowing the Marriott hotel to run the facility ended in 2005 when costs increased, but Friday's report estimated $800,000 in savings through privatization. I know the Governor said he's bad at math, but the numbers just don't add up at all. They're flying in the face of reality, while calling it savings. Since when does savings mean that it costs you more? That must be like how increasing fees is different than raising taxes.

  2. avatar Jonathan Eron makes this comment

    Wednesday, 14 July 2010

    One Contract cost more in overruns from privatization than the whole estimated savings of Christie by: Jason Springer Tue Jul 13, 2010 at 12:00:00 PM EDT Governor Christie's privatization task force says they can save over $200 million dollars by privatizing just about everything including the toilet paper. They promise there is more to come, but from the initial list they talk about privatizing services at the MVC. Let's look at the SCI report about what happened the last time we went there: In sum, the investigation revealed an ill-conceived state process undermined by mismanagement from within and tainted by manipulation from without. At virtually every critical juncture, the primary duty of government to safeguard citizen interests was set aside in favor of a deeply flawed initiative that cost too much and produced too little in the way of satisfactory results.

  3. avatar Jonathan Eron makes this comment

    Wednesday, 14 July 2010

    No meaningful or accurate cost comparison was done to determine whether the state itself could have undertaken an effective I/M program at less cost. As it stands, the privatized version will have cost New Jersey taxpayers approximately $590 million when the contract with Parsons Infrastructure expires in August 2005 - some $200 million more than the original projected expenditure - as a result of change orders, over-charges, exorbitant expenses for non-operational items such as public relations, questionable fees and mark-ups, and an assortment of programmatic costs borne by the state despite privatization. In order to put the cost estimate in perspective, and to bridge a "due diligence" gap left by the state's original failure to perform appropriate comparisons, the Commission conducted its own financial analysis.

  4. avatar Jonathan Eron makes this comment

    Wednesday, 14 July 2010

    he results show that if the state had simply continued to conduct inspections under terms of the old pre-enhanced system, the seven-year cost of the program would have totaled approximately $217 million - little more than one-third the projected payout to Parsons Infrastructure. If the state had assumed responsibility for the enhanced I/M program in place of the private vendor, it would have cost taxpayers approximately $339 million - nearly $250 million less than the projected payout to Parsons. No wonder the Governor wanted to get rid of the SCI and put it under his control.

Add Comment



Click to get a new image.

Current Poll

In your opinion, what is the biggest issue facing Moorestown?
 

Twitterings