Not necessarily. The government will have several providers to choose from, which will have to compete in price. If the prices are still inflated, we are talking government corruption, which is yet another reason to make the government smaller, not bigger.

> compete in price

Which equals worse service.

I've yet to across a privatization project that improved anything for the end user, and I lived through a bunch in the 90s. Interregional rail, public transport, postal, telecom... They were all failures.

I can’t think of one privatization effort in the US that improved services, or kept services steady at a lower cost.

There may be one but it’s certainly the exception.

Though it greatly enriches those helming the effort.

ahem SpaceX.

No Musk fan, but that company has been doing a real bang-up (literally) job of developing affordable launch systems.

I think the SLS is a disaster, and I suspect is very much in DOGE's crosshairs.

As always, "it depends" is really where the truth lies. There doesn't seem to be anyone that is "always right," or "always wrong."

It's the extremists that believe that there is "always right/wrong," that cause the pain.

That’s a good one and that should be a case study: https://www.forbes.com/2003/02/03/cx_ah_0203space.html

Privatization was well under way, but the incumbents were (and still are) awful.

NASA later took a risk with SpaceX, fostered competition, and it paid off enormously.

But this worked out because there was a market and demand (private sector satellites).

Is that the same thing though?

Lots of private for-profit cooks involved in SLS. That's the other issue common with privatization: way too easy to blame someone else/each other in the chain of subcontractors.

It will be interesting to see what happens with SLS. I guarantee that Musk wants it fed into the shredder, but lots of senators and congresscritters rely on its pork.

That's not how govt contract works.

Repeat providers will win almost all contracts because they know how to navigate the "red tapes" and they know the inner people.

Competition? lol...

I am very aware of this, which is why I mentioned corruption in my comment, and how the only solution is to make the government smaller. Should have read the comment to the end.

A smaller government may cut the red tape, but it can only service a smaller number of client or citizens. Or offer far less.

Furthermore, I can point you to SCRUM teams that are small, but are wildly inefficient. Size isn’t the root cause of inefficiency.

The better take is why is the bidding process so opaque? Why the red tape and micromanaging?

Most importantly: Would this still lead to a better outcome than motivated, short-term government employees?

USDS was a 4 year(?) stint; I declined because I need stability in the private sector at this stage of my life and can’t move to DC, but if I were in my 20s I would’ve jumped at the chance.

Edit: Well, not now but in 2019/2020.

I can help you reason through the whys on the inefficiencies if you’re truly interested.

That's not necessary called corruption.

These veteran private vendors just happened to know the road leading to a signature vs new competitors who are still learning the ropes.

The more important piece here is that the government ends up not owning anything because it farms out everything to the private, including Government land, critical govt function.

If you think that everything will be done correctly and the critical function won't get abused well then um.... You're looking at things unfold in real time.

It's interesting that:

In the US, people want to protect themselves from the government.

In the EU, people want the government to protect them.

Very profound mindset that leads to the difference in attitudes.