The GOP needs K Street's muscle for long-term ideological projects to remake the national government.
For years, conservatives have been pushing to divert part of Social Security into private investment accounts. Such a move, GOP operatives argued, would provide millions of new customers and potentially trillions of dollars to the mutual fund industry that would manage the private accounts. The profits earned would, of course, be shared with the GOP in the form of campaign contributions.
Bush has proposed opening up 850,000 federal jobs--about half of the total--to private contractors. And while doing so may or may not save taxpayers much money, it will divert taxpayer money out of the public sector and into private sector firms, where the GOP has a chance to steer contracts towards politically connected firms.
Anyone who doubts this eventuality need look no further than Florida. There, as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman pointed out last year, Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother, has outsourced millions of dollars worth of work formerly performed by government employees to private contractors. There's little evidence that doing so has improved state services, as the governor's own staff admits. But it has vastly improved the financial state of the Florida Republican Party. According to an investigation by The Miami Herald last fall, "[t]he policy has spawned a network of contractors who have given [Bush], other Republican politicians, and the Florida GOP millions of dollars in campaign donations."
So, the Texas three-step: (1) Republicans privatize a government service, (2) steer the service to a politically connected firm, and (3) collect the payoff from that firm as a campaign contribution.
And K Street prepares the ideological ground for step (1). And Pennsylvania's own Rick "Man on Dog" Santorum is playing a big role here (read the article).
Gee, I wonder who's paying for all this?
After lying, looting is what the Republicans do best!