Private sector efficiency is a ludicrous myth

Colorado Senatorial candidate Ken Buck says, "I don't believe that the federal government runs anything more efficiently than the private sector."  (Buck, incidentally, has been a public employee ever since he graduated from law school in 1985.) 

It used to be that the majority of people supported the government and even looked up to it.  If you're over 50, you may remember this yourself.  It was right before the government started enforcing civil rights laws.

Since then, the general public's esteem for the government has fallen dramatically, to the point that candidates for federal office regularly fall all over themselves to assert their hatred of the federal government, and go into paroxysms at the thought of living in that hell-hole, Washington, D.C.

Is it really true, though?  Is the federal government less efficient than the private sector?  Take health care.  The administrative costs for health care in the private sector run 20-30%.  Medicare is around 2%.  I don't know what the overheard costs for pension funds are, but I bet it's more than the less-than-1% at Social Security. 

Private contractors--"soldiers"--in Iraq and Afghanistan often earn six-figure incomes.  What do we pay the average Sergeant in the US Army?  Private sector more efficient?  I think not.  In fact, if the private sector was so efficient then bloated General Motors and bilious Wall Street would never have needed--oops!--government help.

Buck thinks privatization should extend even to veterans' administration hospitals, the National Science Foundation, and the Center for Disease Control.  He doesn't criticize these agencies, by the way, and neither has anyone else, to my knowledge.  That doesn't matter, though, because Buck's cause is ideological, not practical. 

Let's imagine the National Science Foundation as a private entity, perhaps funded by oil companies.  Think that might affect their assessment of the climate? 

Imagine Halliburton running the Center for Disease Control.  Here's something for your next nightmare:  What might Halliburton do with an ebola virus?