Thune Reintroduces Bill to Eliminate Government Competition With Private Industry
“Fair competition will allow businesses to thrive and save taxpayers money.”
WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) today reintroduced legislation that would require federal agencies to rely on the private sector when providing goods and services that are readily available. Thune’s legislation, the Freedom from Government Competition Act (S. 2990), would ensure private enterprises that provide services that are replicated by the federal government have the ability to compete for the opportunity to deliver those federally provided services.
Thune’s legislation would make the federal government smaller and more efficient while providing the best value to the taxpayer. The bill has been likened to codifying a “Yellow Pages” test, meaning that if the federal government is doing something that can be found in the Yellow Pages, or now in a simple online search, the product or service should be subject to market competition.
“This bill is a commonsense approach in allowing small businesses to compete with the federal government if they can provide that same good or service,” said Thune. “These businesses can oftentimes provide services in a cheaper, more efficient manner. Fair competition will allow businesses to thrive and save taxpayers money.”
The Freedom from Government Competition Act does not mandate the privatization of any specific federal service and would protect those activities that are inherently governmental, such as certain national defense and homeland security functions, prosecutions, foreign policy, and activities to bind the United States to take or not to take some action by contract, policy, regulation, authorization, or order.
Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) is the sponsor of the companion bill, which was introduced today in the U.S. House of Representatives.
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I believe to some extent this is done, in Yellowstone Park, for example. I believe this is in general a good thing to have the private sector provide things such as food and lodging to visitors of our national parks. The problem I have is when one company has the contract for the entire park there is a lack of competition and no need to have competitive pricing and servicing. When I stayed in Yellowstone, the “resort” was quite expensive in my opinion and the room was not much more than a bed and a bathroom. There was no WIFI unless you went to the lobby. The meals we bought on site were OK to eat, but again rather expensive for what you got. A little competition would probably help in quality and price.
Competition would be great to ensure that we the people are getting the most of our money paid to the government. I am never a fan of the government being in an industry that the private sector can handle. Regulation (if it is actually needed, Barack) is fine, but competing with private enterprise is not a government function.