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Utmost Certainty is correct, virtually all governmental functions that do not involve elected office should by contracted from and provided by private businesses.

Personally I don't disagree with in the least when it comes to privatizing public services that have traditionally been provided by local & state gov'ts - like trash collection, water/sewer service, public transit, etc. Private corporations have an incentive to provide those services - for which there is rather static demand -at lower cost to the taxpayer and lower their operational costs to make a profit doing it.

But serious corruption and constitutional concerns can and do occur with Big Business and Big Gov't form alliances that can profit by denying Americans' freedom. The Private Prison lobby is one such example right now, that is just starting to get out of control. Private jail lobbies fill the campaign coffers of state elected officials, who in some limited instances have gone on to build jails that aren't needed, and then pass laws which increase mandatory sentencing minimums for what most people would consider rather petty crimes. The Private prison system, of course, benefits with more taxpayer dollars per inmate, per year. So it's in their financial interest that more people go to jail. Some info in this article from AZ:

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/09/04/20110904arizona-prison-business-politics.html

Also, a story from a couple of years ago, where two judges were indicted in a kickback scandal in PA. They were sending juviniles who really had no prior records and committed very 'young and stupid' like offenses away to privatized juvinile detention centers - run by a company which it turned out later, they had some business ties to:

Pennsylvania rocked by 'jailing kids for cash' scandal

This is why privatizing police is NOT a good idea, IMO. Not that these companies are evil, but there is the massive potential for corruption at the POLITICAL level when there's incentive to deny due process and skirt constitutional protections in our justice system to enhance the bottom line (and increase one's re-election campaign contributions). Slippery, slippery slope.

Far be it from public unions to provide kickbacks to their employers.

Oh, wait - those are called political contributions.

To paraphrase a common gun argument; companies are not evil, people are.

Enterprises run by man will always be subject to corruption - the free market system limits the damage.

I agree.

Privatizing government functions and requiring taxpayers to pay for it via taxes is something I do not generally support because it leads to costly corruption. The real goal is to keep government small enough that we can pay for it, and so it doesn’t take our rights, not to give politicians and their partners in crime opportunities to steal.

Any time public private partnerships exist where tax dollars directly feed corporate interests, there is always a strong tendency between the involved parties, politicians and bureaucrats to create collusion and corruption that in the end becomes much more costly to taxpayers than having government do the function itself.

Our politicians are very astute (not necessarily honest) handing out lucrative contracts paid for directly by other people’s money (taxpayers) to well heeled corporations. When it comes to selling or leasing a public asset they will make deals and under-price it for their cronies costing us once again. The bureaucrats that are entrusted to manage the private aspect soon find lucrative revolving door benefits and they will be managing it for their benefit, not ours.

So in the end some functions like trash collection that can be mandated out totally and then directly paid by the users are more amenable to privatizing than those functions where it behooves citizens to have direct control and not have their taxes taken and given to corporations.