Editorial: This road looks familiar

A task force assembled by Gov. Christie recently reported that New Jersey's government could save a bundle simply by turning over many of its core functions - from motor-vehicle services to school facilities - to the private sector. But thanks partly to another governor named Christie, New Jerseyans need not wait in suspense for the results of this government innovation.

That's because the state already has some disastrous and relatively recent experience with privatization - much of it in the areas singled out by the task force.

Christie deserves credit for cutting the state budget and looking for more ways to do so. And so far this is only a report (though one ordered up and roundly praised by the governor himself). But given the state's history, some of the task force's ideas weren't even worth examining, let alone pursuing any further.

In 1998, Gov. Christie Whitman's outsourcing of motor-vehicle inspections to a private company led to epic lines and widespread outrage. It later emerged that the sweetheart contract had gone to a company associated with avid campaign giving.

Whitman's privatization of motor-vehicle agency offices also contributed to interminable waits, as well as corruption and security breaches. That helped end the Division of Motor Vehicles' long death spiral and bring about an overhaul that replaced it with today's Motor Vehicle Commission.

Under Whitman's successor, Jim McGreevey, excessive privatization helped yet another agency become so toxic that it had to be reformed and renamed. Partly by leaving basic project management to private companies, the Schools Construction Corp. blew through billions of taxpayer dollars while leaving much of its job undone.

Now, not many years after these follies, Chris Christie's task force says the state should again get out of the business of vehicle inspections and preschool construction. It seems task force chairman Dick Zimmer, a Republican former congressman, is showing all the political skill that helped him cobble together resounding U.S. Senate election losses to the likes of Bob Torricelli and Frank Lautenberg.

Of course, given that two of the task force's five members head the Chamber of Commerce of Southern New Jersey and the Commerce and Industry Association of New Jersey, Christie couldn't have expected a skeptical take on government by corporations.

Zimmer & Co. came up with some ideas that have not been proven wrong in the last 15 years, but some of them sound terrible anyway - for instance, privatizing building-code enforcement. Others, such as private prison-food service and toll collections, seem more plausible.

Privatization shouldn't be ruled out, especially in hard times. But some services belong in government, and others should be reduced or eliminated before they are outsourced to crony capitalists. This privatization-as-panacea proposal is a tired summer rerun, and one that New Jersey just finished watching.