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The idea of private toll roads is a demon we are going to have to face across the nation in the future. This is because of a chain of events that governments have allowed to happen:

1) Paving contractors are powerful, single issue lobbyists at all levels of government. They commit huge sums of money to insure that public roads are built and maintained at a low level of quality, so that they will continually have new maintenance contracts worth many billions of dollars.

2) The gasoline tax paid highway fund has been systematically looted for years, with only short term maintenance being funded on a “need” basis. This is why no politician will ever consider reducing the gasoline tax. The revenue from those taxes has already been spent on other things.

3) At the State level, gasoline taxes do fund low quality road repair. But the price of that repair rises to the estimated gas tax revenues, so they likely also have no surplus funds. But this only works as long as there is consistent purchase of gasoline. If the public uses less gas, then road maintenance is no longer fully funded. This is why States are now considering mileage taxes on top of gas taxes.

4) Local and State governments are now radically increasing the fines associated with vehicle use, as a revenue stream indifferent to safety. Such fines are becoming ad hoc taxes, and with some excuse may become randomly issued taxes. Every 25th vehicle receiving a fine for an imaginary “violation”.

Politicians at all levels of government see a way out of this mess with the creation of private toll roads. Such roads can be built to higher quality than paving contractors will allow. They are built and maintained by a foreign company, subsidized by the US, and the toll road can be purchased by the government if it proves to be profitable.

It also is a good excuse to weasel out of the hundreds of billions of dollars that should have been spent on the highway system, but was used for other things.

But the bottom line is that it is using one scam to escape from several other scams. As such, the odds are high that it will blow up and cost the public a fortune. But the scoundrels involved could care less.