Reining In the New Spoils System: A Proposal Part I: Defining the Problem

I'm gonna introduce this topic with a favored boogeyman of the left - Halliburton. We all know the story: This all-purpose giant contracting conglomerate, formerly headed by Darth Cheney himself, is awarded massive no-bid contracts by the Bush misAdministration to perform various tasks traditionally performed by the federal government. Notoriously, billions of dollars go missing during the early days of the Iraq War, Halliburton subsidiary KBR is ostensibly deemed the culprit escapes any measure of accountability, and campaign contributions to Republicans rise substantially among the war profiteering sector.

Halliburton has become so notorious due to its sheer brazenness engaging in naked cronyism. They are an effective poster child for the rapidly expanding phenomenon of privatized government services. The GOP and other supporters claim it is more effective because private entities can perform services cheaper, thus saving taxpayers money. This theory has been proven incorrect in reality, but makes for an effective smokescreen argument. To quote the eminently quotable Paul Krugman, circa 2002:

So what's this about?

First, it's about providing political cover. In the face of budget deficits as far as the eye can see, the administration -- determined to expand, not reconsider the program of tax cuts it initially justified with projections of huge surpluses -- must make a show of cutting spending. Yet what can it cut? The great bulk of public spending is either for essential services like defense and the justice system, or for middle-class entitlements like Social Security and Medicare that the administration doesn't dare attack openly.

Privatizing federal jobs is a perfect answer to this dilemma. It's not a real answer -- the pay of those threatened employees is only about 2 percent of the federal budget, so efficiency gains from privatization, even if they happen, will make almost no dent in overall spending. For a few years, however, talk of privatization will give the impression that the administration is doing something about the deficit.

But distracting the public from the reality of deficits is, we can be sure, just an incidental payoff. So, too, is the fact that privatization is a way to break one of the last remaining strongholds of union power. Karl Rove is after much bigger game.

A few months ago Mr. Rove compared his boss to Andrew Jackson. As some of us noted at the time, one of Jackson's key legacies was the ''spoils system,'' under which federal jobs were reserved for political supporters. The federal civil service, with its careful protection of workers from political pressure, was created specifically to bring the spoils system to an end; but now the administration has found a way around those constraints.

We don't have to speculate about what will follow, because Jeb Bush has already blazed the trail. Florida's governor has been an aggressive privatizer, and as The Miami Herald put it after a careful study of state records, ''his bold experiment has been a success -- at least for him and the Republican Party, records show. The policy has spawned a network of contractors who have given him, other Republican politicians and the Florida G.O.P. millions of dollars in campaign donations.''

What's interesting about this network of contractors isn't just the way that big contributions are linked to big contracts; it's the end of the traditional practice in which businesses hedge their bets by giving to both parties. The big winners in Mr. Bush's Florida are companies that give little or nothing to Democrats. Strange, isn't it? It's as if firms seeking business with the state of Florida are subject to a loyalty test.

So am I saying that we are going back to the days of Boss Tweed and Mark Hanna? Gosh, no -- those guys were pikers. One-party control of today's government offers opportunities to reward friends and punish enemies that the old machine politicians never dreamed of.

note: text bolded by me.

This is why we care about Halliburton - we have seen this sort of cronyism multiple times before, and resoundingly rejected it as a nation each time. There is no reason to believe that the voting public would accept a return to a de facto spoils system, with trillions of dollars at its disposal, if they clearly saw it as such. Think about the following events that are emblematic of the traits most hurting Republican approval in recent years:

1) Katrina - with political cronies installed at the top of a disaster management agency, a city drowns while the federal government does nothing. President Bush and his Republican toadies blithely ignore the fact that FEMA has been gutted and "heckuva job, Brownie" becomes a catch phrase to symbolize the GOP culture of corruption.

2) Justice Department politicization - Thanks to the efforts of intrepid blogger/reporter Josh Marshall, the Bush misAdministration was exposed for morphing its Justice Department into a tool of the Republican Party under Abu Gonzales. Once the story hit the traditional media, the approval ratings of Shrub and his congressional bootlickers took a significant hit.

3) Elitist economic policy - After-tax income inequality has risen to its highest level since 1928. Republicans believe the economy is doing just hunky dory while those without a trust fund are stuck in neutral and sliding back. Here's Fred Thompson in one of last year's GOP debate, echoing the standard party line:

MR. THOMPSON: I think there is no reason to believe that we're headed for a recession. We're enjoying 22 quarters of successive economic growth that started in 2001, and then further in 2003 with the tax cuts that we put in place. We're enjoying low inflation. We're enjoying low unemployment. The stock market seems to be doing pretty well. I see no reason to believe we're headed for -- (pause) -- for economic downturn.

MS. BARTIROMO: Senator, you've painted a very nice picture. The Dow and the S&P 500 today at new highs tonight, record numbers, and yet, two-thirds of the people surveyed said we are either in a recession or headed for one. Why the angst?

MR. THOMPSON: Well, I think there are pockets in the economy. Certainly they're having difficulty. I think there are certainly those in Michigan that are having difficulty. I think you always find that in a vibrant, dynamic economy. I think that not enough has been done to tell what some call the greatest story never told, and that is that we are enjoying a period of growth right now, and we should acknowledge what got us there and continue those same policies on into the future.

In other words, all those useless poor and working-class people should quit complaining, suck it up and wait for the crumbs to trickle down. They just don't get it - if the rich are doing well, then you're just not working hard enough.

Why does this matter to the privatization debate? Because while most citizens won't openly express animosity towards the wealthy in general, an immense amount of rage can be generated towards those enriching themselves off the taxpayer's dime. This brings us to the next point:

4) War Profiteers - Not much explanation is needed. Even the most wingnutty Republicans won't dare to defend these loathsome maggots; all they can do is distract and change the subject. And - surprise! - government contractors pay their executives extraordinarily lavishly. Halliburton, for example, paid its CEO David Lesar a whopping $29,360,000 in 2006 alone. That's two-hundred and ninety-three MILLION taxpayer dimes. And they're honestly saying the government, who pays its top executives no more than $400,000, can't do the job just as efficiently?! Even the most accomplished BS artists can't possibly believe that deep down.

So we reach the key question: how to break through the smoke screen and start debating the privatization matter in honest terms? I'll present my proposed solution in the next post. Stay tuned.....