The trend of outsourcing essential public services started with Ronald Regan and quickly became a mantra of the Republican Party. The unquested premis was that private industry was always cheaper and more efficient than government. In practice, my observation is privitasation often provided neither, as these lucrative contracts were often non-competitive monopolies with every incentive for companies to cut costs and maximize profits, and few incentives to provide good effective public service. Lose campaign contribution laws have also hurt as less ethical companies discovered that it was cheaper to buy political support, than legiitamitely compete for highly profitable contracts based on merit.