Editing Reason Foundation (section)

===Privatization===
Reason Foundation co-founder Robert Poole "is credited as the first person to use the term '[[privatization]]' to refer to the contracting-out of public services and is the author of the first-ever book on municipal privatization, ''Cutting Back City Hall'', published by Universe Books in 1980."<!-- syntax UGH ! --><ref name="poole"/> The book was very influential, notably, by providing the intellectual support for [[Margaret Thatcher]]'s privatization efforts in the United Kingdom.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> Thatcher wrote in the foundation's ''Annual Privatization Report 2006'', "State control is fundamentally bad because it denies people the power to choose and the opportunity to bear responsibility for their own actions. Conversely, privatisation shrinks the power of the state and free enterprise enlarges the power of the people."<ref>Margaret Thatcher, "Rebuilding An Enterprise Society Through Privatisation", ''Annual Privatization Report 2006'', p. 7 (http://reason.org/files/d767317fa4806296191436e95f68082a.pdf).</ref>

The Reason Foundation supports the privatization of (or public-private partnerships for) almost all government functions. Leonard Gilroy, Reason Foundation's director of government reform, describes privatization as "a strategy to lower the costs of government and achieve higher performance and better outcomes for tax dollars spent."<ref name="TenPrinciplesOfPriv">Leonard Gilroy and Adrian Moore, [http://reason.org/news/show/ten-principles-of-privatization "Ten Principles of Privatization"]</ref> Gilroy also notes that "If badly executed, privatization like any other policy can fail. Taxpayers are no better off, and may be worse off, if a service is moved from a government agency to an incompetent or inefficient private business."<ref name="TenPrinciplesOfPriv"/>