Ralph Nader: Corporate Contractors' Heavy Burdens on Taxpayers

Next time you hear federal officials say that there is no money to repair or build necessary public facilities in your community, ask them why there always seems to be money to greatly overpay for government projects that are routinely outsourced to corporate contractors.

It is important to understand why incomplete projects such as the proposed campus-like Department of Homeland Security in Washington, D.C., the “cleanup” of the biggest repository of radioactive waste in the U.S. at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Southeastern Washington State, the ballistic missile defense program and the pie-in-the-sky fusion reactors have gone way over budget. They are either behind schedule, or without any clue for completion or cessation.