John Thune

Posted: June 19th 2009

An Editorial from KnoxNews:

U.S. Rep. John J. Duncan Jr. has several allies in Congress who want to give private companies, especially small businesses, a better opportunity to handle government jobs. He believes the private sector can do the jobs cheaper and more efficiently than the government.

Several other representatives, including Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn, have signed onto Duncan's bill (HR2682), which he introduced on June 3. It is called the Freedom From Government Competition Act of 2009, and it should have an abundance of supporters in both houses.

U.S. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., has introduced the bill in the U.S. Senate. Thune noted that roughly 850,000 federal employees perform jobs that can be classified as commercial in nature, which means in many instances the government "is competing directly against main street businesses."

Although the bill is new, the effort to keep government from competing with the private sector has been around for some time. Similar legislation was introduced in 1996-97.

The bill states that unfair government competition with the private sector is at an unacceptably high level, "both in scope and in dollar volume" and that current law has failed to properly address the problem.

"There's waste in the private sector just like there's waste in government," Duncan said, but the waste in the private sector pales in comparison to the waste in the public sector. A large or small business that consistently wastes money will not be around for very long. On the other hand, he said, if government agencies waste money "they just seem to use that as justification for getting increased appropriations."

If the measure passes, the key to its effectiveness would be a Yellow Pages test for commercial activities in which the federal government might be involved. For example, if the Yellow Pages of a telephone directory list several firms that offer services a federal agency is providing, those services would be subject to competitive bidding.

The federal Office of Management and Budget would be responsible for setting up regulations for the bidding process. The object is to keep the government from providing a product or service if that product or service can be provided more economically from a private commercial source.

"The federal bureaucracy is so wasteful and so inefficient that actually most things can be done with federal contracts cheaper and more efficiently," Duncan said, "even though almost all federal contracts are ridiculously lucrative."

...

The bill needs the attention of both houses. In a time when the government has rushed to prop up failing industries, it also should work to stay out of the way of those that can perform valuable services and grow local and state economies.