The selling out of our Government to private concerns is the single greatest danger to our democracy I know of. Not only does it increase the cost of government (a private company needs to make a profit), it also links perfectly with the Bush administration's desire for secrecy and privacy and is the opposite of "open" and "free". When a governmental function is passed on to a private corporate concern, all it's financial and ethical decisions are hidden from public scrutiny. It completely bypasses the Open Records Act: a private citizen cannot look at a private corporation's records. Look at all the private companies making billions off the Iraq war, filling functions that normally would have been done by the various branches of the military. What ever happened to the Quartermaster Corps? Most of that is now privatized and is costing us billions more than necessary.
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