Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Doesn't it seem likely that firms like Blackwater are the combination of the unholy marriage of the Bush Administration and the Iraq War? I'll go out on a limb and suggest this without going and doing a little research. The Bush Administration has had a particular propensity towards crony capitalism, letting policy be trumped by the need for political favors. Outsourcing government functions is a particularly good way to do this, since government spending gets routed to private companies (which then give money to politicians to keep the spigot open) instead of government workers, who vote Democratic. Until '06, you had a GOP Congress making concerted efforts not share the spoils. Trying to fight wars at the same time in Afghanistan and Iraq stretched the military. The Rumsfeld Doctrine and domestic poltical calculations left Bush trying to wages these wars without expandign the military. This meant they needed to hire lots of private contractors. Look at the way the CPA was run -- do you imagine for a second they would have contracted from a firm run by a Democratic donor? People with non-partisan experience were passed over for CPA jobs in favor of well-connected hacks from conservative think tanks.
There actually are lots of people in the military who are Democrats. But if they're selling to the government, there's been good reason for them not to reveal this.
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And the cure's the same one people have been offering for 100 years - term limits. This is why Democrats who advocate higher taxes drive me nuts. For what? To route the money into the system you describe?
