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A comment on Public Money, Public Code. Parent comment

Re:Public Money, Public Code by jonhohle on Wednesday April 27, 2022 @10:00PM (#31188021)
> This is touted as "small govt"

Small government doesn’t have anything to do with outsourcing functions. Small government is about not doing those things to begin with.

There is definitely a case to be made for a government, big or small, tracking a pandemic. I’m not arguing it shouldn’t. Outsourcing that function to a contractor, however, does not “shrink” the role of government.

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Re:Public Money, Public Code by machinerychorus on Wednesday April 27, 2022 @11:54PM (#31188558)
Right, that's what I'm trying to say. As another commenter put it,

> Govt doing the same things but having them done by contractors does not make it "smaller".

There's a crucial distinction between "privatization of govt" and "smaller govt" which usually gets lost in the public discourse.

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Re:Public Money, Public Code by throwawaygh on Wednesday April 27, 2022 @10:55PM (#31188280)
Small government is absolutely the pretense.

The contracts go to software/it services companies that are connected at the state government level. WWT comes to mind.

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