The billionaire class in America sees the world very differently from our Founding Fathers.
In fact, they're actually working to dismantle the very government that our Founders established.
And the perfect example of this is an on-going fight in Tennessee, led by Republican Governor Bill Haslam.
Haslam's family owns the "Pilot Flying J" chain of truck stops that pepper America's interstates, and he's personally worth around $2 billion, making him America's richest politician.
At the beginning of his second term, Haslam brought on several well-paid consultants to work in the so-called "Office of Customer Focused Government" on a project to outsource 1 out of every 5 state workers, or 20% of the state's public workforce.
The plan was simple, but sweeping: the government would privatize the management and maintenance of every single piece of state property, campuses, parks, office buildings, and even armories, a total of more than 10,000 jobs.
Haslam tried to put this plan into effect without any input from Tennessee's legislature, or its citizens, by using an approach he called "vested outsourcing" that would have allowed favored corporations to help write the request for proposals.
And if it hadn't been for a tipster getting in touch with a leader of Tennessee's public higher-education union, the United Campus Workers, the plan could have gone into effect in July of this year.
According to Melanie Barron and Jeffrey Lichtenstein who first reported this
story for "Portside", the plan would mean that billions in revenue could be funneled to a single private company.
Barron and Lichtenstein also report that one of the rumored top contenders for the contract is Jones Lang LaSalle, which is already a state contractor AND a company that Haslam has reportedly invested in, in the past.
Thanks to the United Campus Workers union though, Haslam's plan to quietly gut Tennessee's state government and funnel taxpayer dollars to his billionaire buddies has been put on hold, for now.
Haslam was forced to abandon his plan after workers mobilized for months, collecting signatures, educating voters, and ambushing Haslam at events with demands to "Put the People First."
Dalton Brown described the win to Barron and Lichtenstein, saying: "We forced Republican members of the legislature to side with their constituents."
It's great that Republicans were forced to side with their constituents during that vote, but the fight is far from over.
