Protecting government agencies

Today state House Democratic lawmakers unveil legislation to protect taxpayers government agencies and workers unions.

Among the legislation they propose would be to "require any employee terminated due to privatization to be offered a similar job by the private firm" - thus eliminating efficiency by protecting unproductive workers, much as public sector unions do now. Allowing private firms to fire undesirable workers - and pay high quality workers more - is why the private sector consistenly outperforms government agencies.

Another bill would require that "the state agency would have to prove that privatization would cost taxpayers at least 10 percent less than the estimated cost for the agency to provide the same service." It is unclears how to prove this, or why anyone would want a state agency to provide a service for only 9.9% more than the private sector.

The reason many services should be privatized is to protect taxpayers from inefficient and costly government programs. Mandating those same inefficiencies on private providers undermines