The 99-year taxpayer boondoggle: bureaucrats sell off America's infrastructure

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | 5/19/07 | Henry Lamb

[metesky]

You’re right. For some reason I discounted the labor and security advantages for the ChiComs and their ownership of the Dhimmi Cahtah Canal.

[Mountain Troll]

Two word hint: railroad cops.

[hinckley buzzard]

Used to be, "conservatives" thought privatization was a good thing. I don't know what the beef is here. There is ample room in these lease arrangements for required maintenance and ultimate responsibility to insure the provision of quality transportation. Private utilities are answerable to regulatory authorities for the provision of reliable services, while earning a profit for their shareholders. I don't see why the transportation business need be different.

Sounds like kneejerk scaremongering to me.

[taxed2death]

Built with our tax dollars, and sold to the highest private bidder who will them charge us more to use what we’ve already paid for.

Thanks for nuthin, Big government.

[seacapn]

My problem is that many of these lease agreements include “noncompete” clauses in them - which is to say, neither the state nor any other private investor can build another freeway-quality road within a certain distance of the lease road.

That is meant to ensure that taxpayers are forced to use the leased “product.” It’s also anti-competetive and anti-market.

[Petronski]

[FRForever]

> Used to be, “conservatives” thought privatization was a good thing. I don’t know what the beef is here.

1. It’s not privatization. It’s a lease. Not only do we end up with the road back in our laps after some years, but we can’t kick the tenants out before then if it doesn’t work out. Worst of both worlds.
2. Privatization is good when competition is possible. How many people are able to pony up the umpty-ump billions it would take to construct a competing road? Give me three or four (or even two) more-or-less-equally convenient ways to get to a place and I’ll agree that competition is the right motivator here. But these are major highways, sometimes through heavily populated areas, which makes the barrier to entry into this market impossibly high.

Without competition, the good-hearted accountants may decide that fixing their road is too expensive and I should buy a new axle every month instead. We already paid for the **** road!! We paid to build it, we pay tolls through the nose to maintain it, but at least now we have recourse to redress of grievances — the people who appoint the road authorities are elected!

I don’t care who owns it. I want to know what recourse I have if the service doesn’t suit me. For many of these roads, there just isn’t another way to travel.

[BuffaloJack]

The roads, bridges and other public structures wouldn’t need the perpetual maintenance if they weren’t always constructed and maintained by the lowest bidder. The Canadian highways are built with materials and practices costing perhaps 25% more than a similar project in the states, but they will last 50 years instead of the 10 to 15 that ours seem to last.