Privatization

So what’s good to be said about Blackwater, the private security contractor -- critics say "rogue mercenary force" -- that has been operating in Iraq? You know, the company involved in the Sept. 16 lethal shooting incident in Baghdad, whose founder, Erik Prince, was kicked around at a Capitol Hill hearing last week?

Only this: Blackwater is what America wanted. Even if few Americans had ever heard of the company until recently, most voters have generally supported the decades-long bipartisan trend… more

It's unlikely that many Americans know Stewart W. Bowen Jr. They should. As the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), Mr. Bowen has helped save taxpayers billions of dollars. His audits of reconstruction contracts have turned up waste, mismanagement and fraud; and his investigations led to four criminal convictions and embarrassed excuses from the U.S. government's biggest military contractors.

Yet, for all his good work, some in Congress are not terribly appreciative. On the eve of recent mid-term elections, an… more

NAF, et al. vigorously oppose adoption of the Notice as proposed. The proposed rules virtually replicate the 2002 Petition by Progeny LMS, LLC (Progeny Petition), which attracted considerable opposition from a broad cross-section of industry groups. Other than the continued failure of the L-LMS Band -- a risk reflected in the absurdly low prices the licenses brought at auction -- the NPRM offers no justification for adopting the proposal.

To the contrary, an objective reading of the facts creates the… more

"Remember Max Cleland" are three words that should haunt Democrats who want to oppose President Bush's new school voucher plan for children displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Mr. Cleland, a triple amputee from his service in the Vietnam War, was Georgia's junior U.S. senator until defeated for re-election in 2002 amid charges of weakness on national security.

Those charges stemmed from his opposition to Mr. Bush's response to 9/11: creation of a Department of Homeland Security free from civil service union… more

From the fire fighters who died on 9/11 to the rescue workers struggling to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, the absence of reliable and interoperable voice and data communications among public safety agencies has become an urgent national dilemma. Within the coming weeks, the Senate Commerce Committee will mark up DTV legislation likely to impose a hard deadline on the clearance of TV channels 52 to 69 -- freeing up precious spectrum for public safety voice interoperability and for… more

In August 2000, a motley array of democracy activists, politicians, and fringe nationalists trudged into a hotel in Budapest. The assembled figures constituted the leading members of Serbia’s political opposition movement -- a fractured and increasingly desperate group. Only weeks earlier, Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, hoping to catch his erstwhile opposition off guard, had announced snap presidential elections. After watching his domestic opponents spend eight years repeatedly snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, Milosevic was confident. But this time,… more

Nearly a year ago, voters following the presidential race heard a stirring call for social reform: "The times in which we work and live are changing dramatically. The workers of our parents' generation typically had one job, one skill, one career. ... And most of those workers were men. Today, workers change jobs, even careers, many times during their lives, and ... two-thirds of all moms also work outside the home." As a result, "many of our most fundamental systems--the… more

Remember those bumper stickers during the early-1990s fight over the Clinton health plan? "National Health Care? The Compassion of the IRS! The Efficiency of the Post Office! All at Pentagon Prices!" In American policy debates, it's a fixed article of faith that the federal government is woefully bumbling and expensive in comparison with the well-oiled efficiency of the private sector. Former Congressman Dick Armey even elevated this skepticism into a pithy maxim: "The market is rational; government is dumb." … more

Could a reformed public pension system give citizens more control over their retirement savings, as conservatives want, without undermining security in old age, as liberals fear? Here is a proposal that does just that in the American context, although it could apply equally well to any public pension system struggling with long-term debts and an ageing population.

The idea is to allow all US workers to divert a portion of their payroll taxes into personal "early retirement accounts",… more

Social Security is a mess. With the oldest babyboomers now four years away from qualifying for benefits, the program faces a shortfall of $12.7 trillion. To close the deficit, the program would need to cut benefits by 27% by the time today's 25-year-olds retire. And yet in this silly season, neither presidential candidate is offering a viable solution: Kerry says he won't touch Social Security; Bush promises an expensive privatization plan that would leave individuals with huge market risks.… more