19 November 2010 Lowest bid security worked so well in 2001

“A Republican lawmaker, who is faulting big government spending, is suggesting that airports dump the Transportation Security Administration altogether, and opt instead to privatize security.

And some airports, fed up with poor service in a climate where travelers are outraged about the prospect of full-body scanners, are listening.

The consideration comes after Florida Republican Rep. John Mica – a longtime critic of the TSA -- wrote letters to the country’s 100 busiest airports earlier this month asking them to switch to private security.

"I think we could use half the personnel and streamline the system," said the Congressman, who's likely to become the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee when the new Congress assembles in January.

Some of the companies who might take the TSA's place are among the lawmaker's campaign contributors, the Associated Press reported. But Mica's spokesman Justin Harclerod insisted the donations never influenced his proposal.”

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/11/19/2010-11-19_tsa_comes_under_scrutiny_some_airports_consider_gop_rep_john_micas_proposal_to_d.html#ixzz15kBYFkOi





The GOP, wanting us to believe they care about the safety of our citizens and the security of our nation, can’t wait to privatize every aspect of government and award the contracts to whichever of their corporate sponsors can pretend to provide the same service for the lowest bid. The dust hasn’t settled from the 2010 elections yet, the teavangelists and other kooks elected on the GOP ticket are not yet functional members of Congress; but they’re already lining up to repay their corporate backers by privatizing everything in sight.

Privatizing government services and functions will mean low bid contracts, or no-bid contracts if a company has contributed enough to the GOP propaganda fund. The low bid contracts will supposedly shave the cost of services. Actually, they will shave the salaries or hourly insult paid to the front line people while the corporate owners get to pocket most of the money meant to provide some form of police or screening protection to the public.

Rep Mica is calling for privatizing the TSA functions. He claims that private screeners are as effective as TSA employees. That must be why private security firms on duty 11 September 2001 caught the hijackers and prevented the attacks using aircraft.

The private screening companies, according to Mica can be more cost effective and more efficient. Read that as paid minimum wage with no benefits, working more hours with less staffing. We already have a public angry about screening delays. Cutting the number of screeners and paying them less to do more will not decrease the security delays; unless the poorly paid screeners just wave people through without actually screening them.

This low-bid mentality that the GOP harbors is might work for legislators hiring house hold staff but it has no place in things that impact or effect national security or citizen safety in any manner. The “party of homeland security” would do well to review recent history. They are all upset by the possibility that a mosque might be part of a building constructed two or three blocks from a hole in the ground created by security screening failures. But they seem less bothered by the fact that private contractors presided over that failure. In fact, they seem quite willing to ignore the potential for more holes in the ground, more mass funerals, if their cronies pocket big bonuses while providing the same levels of inadequate private screening that existed in 2001.

When President Carter launched a low-bid rescue mission that failed miserably, the GOP all but crucified him. When George Bush’s administration sent troops into combat with inadequate body armor and under-armored vehicles, the GOP leaders offered platitudes to the soldiers at risk, and hung another pointless yellow ribbon magnet on their cars. When Halliburton’s no-bid contracts resulted in soldiers being electrocuted in poorly built, sub-contracted to lowest bidder showers, more platitudes were uttered and nothing changed. In the world of the GOP, other people exist to labor and die. Anything that delays or evades labor and death is “un-American,” socialist,” and in need of privatizing so that the upper 1% can milk pennies from the people who serve the guns and protect the big corporate assets in hostile lands.

There is no justification for privatizing any aspect of government. Yet the GOP can’t wait to help their big money backers get even richer. What they can’t privatize because of professional ethics fields such as medicine and other sciences, they plan to abolish. Those things include the FDA, the Education Dept, Health and Human Services, and of course, the Department of Veterans Affairs. Our honorable GOP and Teavangelist legislators intend to do away with the Department of Veterans affairs. They intend to discard injured veterans onto the streets, promising them “privatized” care at any medical facility. That is just another GOP lie. Veterans are not intended to recover or even maintain their existing level of health. They’ve labored and now the GOP would prefer they die, quickly.

Mica, and doubtless other legislators will deny any personal benefit from the hoped-for privatization.

Quite frankly, if a GOP legislator tells me the sun is shining, I will look out doors before agreeing. They may fool the people who voted for them. That seems to be easier and easier for them to do these days. I will not believe that any GOP elected official has any concern for the security of this nation or the safety and well-being of its citizens. They’ve all sold out to the highest bidders. No low-bid services for the GOP legislators. You won’t see them standing in line for security screening at Washington National. And if they succeed in privatizing airport security screening, you won’t see them flying commercial at all.