This section of Reason Foundation’s Annual Privatization Report 2011 provides an overview of the latest federal insourcing, housing finance, private spaceflight and other news on privatization and public-private partnerships in the federal government. Topics include:
- The ongoing dispute over what constitutes “inherently governmental” functions continued in 2011, and new Obama administration regulations could undermine federal outsourcing policy standards dating back to 1955.
- Regulators implementing the Dodd-Frank Act are creating significant risk for both mortgage investors and securitizers and appear likely to undercut the private mortgage industry while benefitting government mortgage providers.
- In 2011, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) combined to purchase or guarantee 95 percent of all new mortgages in America with some mortgages worth as much as $729,750. Every one of these mortgages is backed by taxpayer money.
- Federal agencies, under the encouragement of President Obama, are expected to generate nearly $13 billion in cost savings from asset divestiture, $9.8 billion of which comes form the Department of Defense’s Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) efforts.
- The federal government owns approximately 1.2 million properties that cost $20 billion a year to maintain. Recent Congressional efforts to pass a Civil Property Realignment Act could save as much as $15 billion, according to the Office of Management and Budget.
» Annual Privatization Report 2011: Federal Government Privatization [pdf, 1.9 MB]
» Complete Annual Privatization Report 2011