Republicans have long thought that what the US federal government does can be done better, faster or cheaper by the private sector.
So it should not shock anyone that US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent recently revealed a larger agenda that sheds light on US President Donald Trump’s administration’s seemingly indiscriminate cuts to federal workers and agencies.
Trump’s overarching goal, Bessent said, is to “reprivatize the economy.”
That casts Elon Musk and his unofficial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in a new light — as the vehicle for slashing agency functions to a skeletal state and outsourcing the rest to what would be a much more lightly regulated private sector. Musk himself at a recent Morgan Stanley conference suggested that the government privatize “as much as possible.”
The DOGE cuts so far are not enough to make a dent in the national debt or offset Trump’s proposed tax cuts for the wealthy. Nor do they make government more efficient, which would require a thoughtful assessment. There is no evidence that the “fraud, waste and abuse” Musk claims to have discovered amount to anything more than spending with which he and Trump disagree.
However, as a means to push the nation closer to mass privatization of services? Now the cuts make sense. There is little need of a robust National Weather Service if forecasting is going to be farmed out to private companies. Ditto for the US Postal Service, which Trump has long wanted to privatize, despite the fact that it is protected by the US constitution.
Cuts like these will create considerable disruption, particularly the parts of the country where Trump is most popular. Norman Ornstein, a political analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said he has never seen efforts so rapid and widespread.
“The people who will suffer the most damage are in red states,” he said. “But we are going to start seeing horror stories all over the country. People who don’t think government does anything for them will discover what it means when there is no more safety net, no protections, no more Stage 4 clinical trials because private companies won’t fund them.”
The problem with privatization is that it seldom works. Private companies operate under different parameters from the federal government. Their primary goal is to maximize profit.
Consider the post office. Mail must go to every nook and hamlet in the US, no matter how remote. Wells Fargo, in a report on privatizing the postal service, recommends eliminating the costly “universal service obligation.” Delivery to “unprofitable” regions such as rural areas could become intermittent or just stop. Trump won 63 percent of the vote in rural areas and small towns.
In many rural areas, mail carriers remain a lifeline, bringing vital prescriptions to seniors who are either housebound or far from a pharmacy. The US Department of Veterans Affairs, for instance, fills 80 percent of its prescriptions by mail. Moving to private mail delivery could reduce accessibility and raise prices. About six in 10 veterans voted for Trump.
Or take education. Trump has ordered US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, a former pro wrestling promoter with no practical education experience, to shutter her department or come as close as possible. The department spends most of its money helping rural students, students with disabilities and low-income students. A majority of low-income Americans voted for Trump.
Trump has also made a priority of school vouchers, which let families use tax money earmarked for public schools to send their kids to private schools. However, vouchers seldom fully cover private school tuition and other costs such as books, uniforms and transportation. More importantly, such schools can pick and choose attendees, leaving few options for disabled students or those with special needs. When put to a ballot test in November last year, voters in Nebraska, Kentucky and Colorado all rejected vouchers.
Then there is weather forecasting, which is crucial to mitigating the effects of extreme weather. Yet Musk cut more than 1,300 workers from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which includes the National Weather Service (NWS) and the Hurricane Center. Now NOAA is being told to cut another 1,000. That is a loss of one-fifth of its workforce in less than two months.
The conservative blueprint Project 2025 calls for dismantling NOAA and for NWS to “fully commercialize” its forecasting operations. However, private companies cannot replicate the intricate network of satellites, research and partnerships found at NOAA, even if they could afford the expense. Companies who did so might decide to recoup their investment by charging more for, say, just-in-time storm warnings.
Again, Trump’s own voters would shoulder most of the burden. An analysis by The Associated Press found that red states have received 15 percent more per capita in federal disaster aid since 2011, because they have been slightly more exposed to natural disasters — like the tornados that ripped through Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas last week.
Conservatives have been nibbling around the edges of privatizing government functions for at least 40 years, but with Trump and Musk, they have hit the jackpot.
Once departments and agencies are skeletonized by Musk and Trump, they would be too crippled to fulfill their duties. If companies step in to provide these essential services, the public might find they are priced out of reach.
Patricia Lopez is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics and policy. She is a former member of the editorial board at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where she also worked as a senior political editor and reporter. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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