Deer Park Privatization

Deer Park city council should oppose privatizing services at the golf course.

Privatization doesn't lead to corruption - it is corruption.

It is almost impossible to remove corruption when people make money from services the government provides.

As you get more involved in politics, you become aware that everyone contributing money to politicians wants something. Most people want something pretty specific. Most big contributors seem to be getting their money back in pretty identifiable ways. In our local governments, big political contributors are getting local contracts.

Privatizing services just provides more opportunity for more money to flow back to the politicians. Any money saved comes out of wages and benefits to the workers. But for-profit corporations must pay their investors and must pay taxes that public service departments do not.

How can a service be more efficient if it has higher costs with the addition of making a profit and the additional taxes it pays? Only by cutting something out of the picture - ”the pay and benefits of those who do the work. Governments only save money by having a third party pay employees at low rates they are unwilling to pay directly.

Deer Park should not privatize city jobs for the benefit of politician's pocketbooks at the detriment of worker's wallets. Just last week, a study was released showing the inflation adjusted incomes of the middle and lower class in Texas actually fell in the last twenty years. This is in contrast to the big gains of the upper-middle and high-income families. Income inequality between Texas' richest and poorest residents grew by a wider margin than all but one other state. A willingness to cut the pay of the lowest workers to avoid raising taxes on the wealthier is one symptom of this increasing inequality.

Increased privatization leads to what has been called "Brazilianization." No country is more unequal than Brazil, and its progress has been at the cost of increasing inequality, social injustice, and racial discrimination. Finally, in the last election the majority in Brazil elected a socialist president in protest.

It is in the best interest of all American politicians to provide benefits to all the people, not just to lower taxes. . It is in the best interests of the voters for the Broadcaster to report on the political donations by city contractors. It is in the interests of all voters to keep the corruption in politics to a minimum. It is in the best interests of Deer Park to oppose privatization.

Gary Denton
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Here is a scan of the letter as it appeared in the Deer Park Broadcaster.

In contrast, Houston Strategies wants to increase the number of players bribing councilmen in government. That is my take as he argues for competive privatization while complaining of existing cronyism.

Tags: local, Deer Park, privatization, Braziliation, cronyism, bribery, government, living wage