Ha! I knew you'd say that!
You get to have it both ways, you lucky dog! On the one hand, big gov't spending is bad and wasteful, and the private sector can do a better job; but when big gov't decides to outsource its functions to the private sector to increase efficiency, you're "not shocked" when that money is wasted, because it's still "big gov't" doing the spending.
Come on, that's not fair, or intellectually honest. You can't have it both ways.
As I've said before, if you want America to act like an empire and spend $ billions on nation-building in corrupt and conflict-ridden countries thousands of miles away, then you'd better expect there to be a big price tag. There's no getting around it. And the bigger the price tag, and the farther away it is, the more waste, fraud and abuse you can expect. You should expect even more waste, fraud, and abuse if "big gov't" fails to make the necessary investments in contracting oversight to ensure that contractors deliver what they were supposed to, on time and at cost. (Same as you wouldn't hire a contractor to build your house and then never check on him to make sure it was done right.) Oversight demands TIME and MONEY, which you must understand. It's not simply a matter of the gov't writing a check to some contractor to perform some task, and having dumb "faith in the market" to be honest and effective ("big government conservatism," in a nutshell).
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Uncle T. replied:
Although I am not shocked because I know that it is govt doing the spending, I am truly disillusioned and angry
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This is shocking to read:
"Over the three years studied, more than $20 billion in contracts [in Afghanistan and Iraq] went to foreign companies whose identities—at least so far—are impossible to determine."
If you care about fiscal responsibility and government accountability, read this:
http://www.publicintegrity.org/WOWII/
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