At the behest of Committee Chair Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has produced a report on the wildly successful cost-reducing cost-inflating results of the private provision of the Medicare drug program (Medicare Pard D) Findings of the report:

• The administrative expenses, sales costs, and profits of the privatized Part D program are almost six times higher than the administrative expenses of traditional Medicare.

Be sure to read a great op-ed by our own Matt Lewis in TomPaine.com today on larger lessons to be learned from the privatization of security services in Iraq. Here's the key passage: Citizens who believe in government as a tool to advance the public interest ought to be concerned about excessive privatization of public services. Contractors like Blackwater USA are alienating would-be friends abroad and the public back home. Instead of rushing to privatize public services at every turn, our government should carefully review the services it currently oursources—keeping in mind the role of government should be to serve the public interest. TomPaine.com: The Other Blackwaters

The Bush administration has caught some flack recently for its poor record of enforcing environmental regulations and for the timidity with which it pursues prosecution of the nation's worst polluters. A Sept. 30 Washington Post article reported, "The number of environmental prosecutions plummeted from 919 in 2001 to 584 last year."