An organization called “In the Public Interest” keeps tabs on the scams that private entrepreneurs foist on the public sector, often in collusion with public officials who contract out important public services.

This report documents the coast-to-coast failure of handing public sector activities over to for-profit enterprises.

Outsourcing promises savings that never materialize. Instead, “too often it undermines transparency, accountability, shared prosperity and competition – the underpinnings of democracy itself…Outsourcing means taxpayers have very little say over how tax dollars are spent and no say on actions taken by private companies that tcontrol our public services. Outsourcing means taxpayers cannot vote out executives who make decisions that hurt public health and safety. Outsourcing means taxpayers are contractually stuck with a monopoly run by a single corporation – and those contracts often last decades. And outsourcing too often means a race to the bottom for the local economy, as wages and benefits fall while corporate profits rise.”

Meetings are held in secret. Decisions are made in secret. Costs spiral out of control without accountability. Weak and vulnerable patients are turned away, denied access to vital services because it costs too much to care for them.

In Arkansas, a journalist “asked the CEO of Tiger Correctional Services, a company that contracts for jail commissary services with the Craighead County Sheriff’s Department, about information regarding the company’s monthly sales and profits related to the contract. The chief executive officer of the company told the reporter, “That’s none of your damn business.”

That pretty much sums up the report. It is the public’s money, but the public does not have a right to know how it is spent.