What The Tea Party Doesn't Want You To Know About Their So-Called Smaller Government

[Playinghardball]

Just look at the costs.



Note: This infographic was inspired by a recent study by the Project on Government Oversight, which showed that billions of taxpayer dollars could be saved if contractors were not being paid 1.83 times that of the average public employee for performing comparable services. This finding flies in the face of smaller government advocates who strongly support outsourcing government work to contractors without looking at the costs.

Source: MoveOn.org: http://front.moveon.org/what-the-tea-party-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about-their-so-called-smaller-government/

[Brother Buzz]

1. .

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Thank you!

[Playinghardball]

9. You're welcome...anf have a great day Peggy...

Play

[senseandsensibility]

3. K and R

Very compelling.

[PDJane]

4. A perfectly logical conclusion........

[RegieRocker]

5. The republican and tea party are all about bigger goverment and

telling you what you can do and not do. I.E. Abortion, Drugs etc. They are a bunch of hypocritical liars. They want and like wars along with a gigantic police state.

[timtom]

17. I don't think so.

I think they just haven't caught on how incredibly worse things will be for them should their "plan" be implemented.

They are greedy and self-absorbed, and won't like it when they're thrown in the same pot as liberals.

[RegieRocker]

22. Really now? What proportion of the government is allocated to the drug war

you think?

[Firebrand Gary]

6. The Democratic Party would do wise in using this data.

By this point the entire country knows that the GOP's primary objective is stealing public dollars for private gain. Its GREED. When the public realizes what we spent on the wars and how much money the Bush and Cheney families stole through "no big government contracts" they are bound to start seeing the larger picture.

[newspeak]

7. main goal is to privatize the shite out of anything and everything public

our tax dollars shoveled to their corporate friends' pockets, while their corporate friends use our money against our own interest.

[mod mom]

18. The Democrats are involved in this as well-example:

http://articles.sfgate.com/2003-04-22/news/17487250_1_eg-g-division-george-r-melton-president-urs-corp-s-eg-g

[timtom]

24. I think I read the first few words of your post

and responded hastily.

What I said makes no sense in that context.

Oops! Tee Hee!

[Vinca]

8. Maybe I'm just slow on the uptake today, but I don't understand

the difference between "total private sector compensation" and "average contractor billing rate." In about half the boxes the public cost appears to be more than the private cost. I'm confused.

[starroute]

11. It's not made clear, but I think it's the annual compensation per employee

It shows, for example, that a general attorney who works for the federal government costs an average of $175,000 a year in salary and benefits. Someone with equivalent qualifications in the private sector costs an average of $220,000. But a private contractor doing the same work for the government costs an average of $550,000 a year.

In some cases, the federal employee makes more than the private sector employee -- with the biggest difference being for correctional officers, because private prisons notoriously pay barely more than minimum wages (which is one of the biggest complaints about them.) But in every case the outside contractor costs more, and sometimes much more.

[Vinca]

15. Thanks. It makes sense now.

[AntiFascist]

10. Socialism for the billionaires....

or Economic Fascism. That's what the Tea Party stands for. They really scored big in Iraq.

[Courtesy Flush]

12. I think that's an optimistic graph

That graph probably shows expenses in a static analysis.

In reality, this will not be good enough for the contractors. They will lobby the government to increase the workflow, and therefore their revenue. The only way these contractors' businesses can grow is to squeeze more out of their only customer.

In Arizona, this was done by private prisons, who lobbied for tougher sentencing, sending more people to prison for profit.

[xchrom]

13. Recommend

[butterfly77]

14. kick

[mmonk]

16. Word.

[Blue Owl]

19. Their "small government" is actually a freaking gargantuan scam

What a surprise.

[moondust]

20. Military.

Would seem to be a shining example. Private contractors (Blackwater) are paid large sums to do what troops could do for much, much less.

[Xithras]

21. It''s not just Blackwater

The military outsources everything from cooking to computer maintenance to vehicle repair nowadays. Those are military funds going into private pockets for work that soldiers used to do.

[Blue_Tires]

23. where I live quite a few local teabaggers make their living padding government contracts