Dear editor:
Putting the profit motive into government is an insane idea. Government is not a business and should not be run by private, for-profit enterprises who are then allowed to lobby for more work, which means more taxpayer expense, especially the military-industrial complex and big pharma.
With defense contractors lobbying, we are constantly looking for or creating boogie men to keep the war machine humming and the tax dollars flowing to defense contractors. Pharmaceutical corporations spend millions every year fighting to keep Medicare from being able to negotiate prices or any restrictions on pricing. We're dismantling our State Department, so apparently no one in power right now even wants peace because it's not profitable.
Privatizing government functions doesn't save taxpayers money, it costs us more and leads to continuous wars and worldwide death and misery. The idea that we should have less government in business and more business in government is not a new idea. It's what Republicans campaigned on during the 1920s with no banking regulations and so forth and we all know, or should know, how that ended, with the Republican Great Depression after the spectacular Wall Street crash of 1929.
Many are still alive today and remember it well. Yet, that's exactly what Republicans are doing once again as if somehow doing the same thing they did nearly 100 years ago will produce a different result? All while they are very busy working to remove all banking regulations, which will leave us vulnerable once again and once again they will come crawling to taxpayers for yet another bailout, while we get nothing but more misery.
Judith Zitko
Hot Springs Village
Editorial on 03/17/2018