As far as the Boeings of the world, I think it’s a completely different relationship when the government is a customer for a product or service. Whether they hire a company to make a jet or to perform an audit or erect a building, the relationship is a traditional client-customer relationship. The situations I’m talking about is when an organization is given a grant to operate, where the money is not for direct purchase of a product or service where the government itself is the customer. I’m not saying that anything is wrong with a relationship like that, just that it is different than when the government is a customer buying a specific product or service the same way other customers would buy it.
That said, it sounds like there are accounting checks in place to make sure that funds go for specific items and not others. The fear is the degree to which things get “fuzzy” and money might get commingled. LHoD brings up excellent questions that wold help shed light on that.
It’s actually not that different. They use the same procurement vehicles for both goods and services. Performing 50,000 OB/GYN exams is not that different than making 50,000 widgets.
There is a difference in grants vs. contracts, and a grant will have differences reporting requirements and less direct oversize.l. But if you have a grant, you are ok any not getting paid a big lump sum. You are paid as you do the work, and if you don’t do the work, you stop getting paid. And just like a contract, the funding is to be used for the specific activities that were funded. One of the requirements of receiving a government grant is proving you have the accounting capacity to do this.
For profits can, and do, occasionally recurve grants. They don’t do it often because they aren’t allowed to receive a profit from it. But as long as they can do the work, they are eligible to apply and be selected.
Just what I was going to say. In one case, the government wants to secure its ability to intervene militarily with superior air power, and pays a private entity to help make that happen. In the other case, the government wants to secure its ability to provide health care to poor women, and pays a private entity to help make that happen. In both cases the government achieves a legitimate government purpose through reliance on nongovernmental entities.
You don’t think Lockheed Martin, which makes the vast majority of it’s money from taxpayers (~40 Billion per year, more than 800 times what Planned Parenthood receives) and spends more than $10 million a year lobbying the government fits into your OP? They get money from all taxpayers but give the majority to the Republican Party. Their lobbying results in more taxpayer money coming into their coffers. Is it just because Planned Parenthood mostly lobbies the Democratic party that you want to disallow their contributions?
You’re okay with private companies being able to offer substantial amounts of money to the people who decide which private companies receive even larger amounts of taxpayer money?
If we eliminated the term “political donations” and called these offers “bribes” would you still be okay with the practice?