Reply #4: I've worked for the state, and for private industry...

[skids]

...they are both just as foobar as each other.

And this bogus pervasive bullcrap about the almighty "competition" being at the root of everything good seems to ignore that it is perfectly possible to have competition in government agencies, it just generally isn't done because the idea of having redundant services isn't very popular with the taxpayers. If they wanted to, say, have two competing FEMAs which get reviewed every year and have their budgets, territory, leadership, and staff cut or expanded on a performance basis, that could be technically done.

I think competing government services should be available in important industries and set the bar over which corporations must perform to be truly competitive. Of course, that would only be a productive thing if we had people running the government who were not actively trying to "drown it in the bathtub" for fun and profit.