Privatization, Outsourcing and Insourcing Trends in Federal Government

Policy Brief

Privatization, Outsourcing and Insourcing Trends in Federal Government

Federal Government Privatization Chapter of Annual Privatization Report 2011

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