Free market ideologues provided cover for corrupt Republican politicians to divert taxpayers' hard-earned money to favored political insiders with the false claim that prisons run by private owners are more cost effective. A Mother Jones reporter took a job as a private prison guard and found that private prisons are places of unimaginable violence. In response to the report published in Mother Jones, high ranking US Department of Justice officials have said that the federal government will cease contracting with privatized prisons. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/08/department-justice-plans-end-private-prison

Republicans learned to use libertarian "free market" ideologues in order to feather their own nests. Privatization, favored by libertarians, is the Republican way of turning public functions into million dollar businesses for themselves and their friends. In the case of the armed forces, the privatized parts of the US military are multi-billion dollar businesses.