Madam Speaker,

In recent years we've seen many government services outsourced in whole or in part. (We call this "piratizing" them, because it amounts to stealing from the government coffers.) The Bandits claim that this makes services cheaper. Of course, the "savings" are illusory and the companies providing these services then add on a profit, making the result as expensive or more so than the same services done by a government agency.

So far, much of this increased expense has been hidden because the private companies don't provide the same quality of service. Will you make sure that any government service that is performed by a private entity conform to the following rules:

(1) It should be subject to the same audit and sunshine statutes as the government agency that employs it or that it replaces. In particular, all business transactions it has should be open to government auditors.

(2) It should provide the same opportunities for unionization as the agency that employs it or that it replaces. If that agency is unionized, then the subcontractor should automatically be unionized.

(3) It should provide the same healthcare and pension rights to employees that the federal government does.

(4) Profits should be limited to a maximum of 10% over operating costs, a fair profit for a guaranteed business opportunity.

(5) All whistleblower laws that apply to the federal government should automatically apply to service companies.

(6) All subcontractors and their subcontractors, recursively, should employ only people entitled to work in the U.S.

Are you willing to personally put forth legislation that sets these standards for future contracts and phase out any existing contract that doesn't conform to them over the next five years? (BTW, there should be no exception for defense contractors.)