Memorial Day Travel - Your Roads are For Sale

Normally on a Friday we go for the fluff around here. No sense getting everyone all churned up just before the weekend unless something really, really, big is going down. But on this Memorial Day holiday weekend we did think this topic was appropriate, even on a Friday, given the fact that so many of you will take to the highways for this 3 day weekend.

States are selling your toll road highways to foreign companies in sweetheart 99 year lease deals. They are also contracting the construction and maintenance of future highways (with tolls) to these companies as well.

While selling off our highways to foreigners doesn't have the same level of security concerns as the Dubai owned company U.S. ports deal from a few months ago, what was a small trend is now becoming standard operating practice with government at all levels bailing out on their responsibility to maintain our infrastructure.

[Quick sidebar on the ports controversy - 90 days later, it hasn't really been resolved. Promises were made that the Dubai company would divest its interests in U.S. ports or transfer their management to a U.S. subsidiary. To date, nothing has happened. The DPW company website remains "unavailable", and the Treasury Department office responsible for the oversight hasn't updated their information. But there is contact information if you would like to try and get an update: Gay Hartwell Sills (202) 622-9066.]

Fire sales of our highways by a number of states raised questions in a recent article by Mike Rupert of the Washington, DC edition of the newspaper The Examiner.

"Transurban Group, Australia’s second-largest toll road owner, last week agreed to lease the Pocahontas Parkway in Richmond for $611 million for 99 years, gaining its first U.S. highway. The company is also part of a consortium ready to spend $913 million to build High Occupancy Toll, or HOT, lanes on Interstate 95 from the 14th Street Bridge to Massaponax and another $900 million to add the lanes to portions of the Interstate 495 Beltway. The company also bid for operating rights for the Dulles Toll Road last year."

The fact that Interstate 95 is included in discussions implies these programs have been blessed at a federal level as well. In fact they are encouraged:

U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta lauded the trend Wednesday but urged more U.S. companies to hop on board. “We know that many private firms are literally knocking on doors in state capitals across the country, willing to invest billions of dollars in transportation projects,” Mineta said. “While many of these firms are international, we believe that transportation infrastructure will be an increasingly attractive opportunity for American investors.”

From a security standpoint, it may or may not be troubling to you that your ports, your highways, and other infrastructure like your local water supply are being contracted out to foreign companies. But there is an ethical line that is beginning to be erased that should be raising serious questions by all taxpayers - where is our money going, why don't we have a say, and why is America increasingly not able to afford to maintain basic services?

We are the richest country in the world, hands down, without debate. Why can't we keep school buildings from crumbling, roads repaired, safe drinking water coming out of the tap?

While states have faced specific budget crunches during economic down cycles over the past 20 years, they have also had years of surplus. In fact, your federal government had a surplus as well just 6 short years ago. So why can't the state and federal government provide even the most basic of services?

• Government has been tarred as an inherently bad thing by many politicians and their constituents. Government is bad, taxes are bad. Reduced government, reduced (or reckless) tax cuts are good. In fact, just as no company can survive by selling a product for less than it costs to produce it, the government cannot provide even basic services below a certain tax base level. We have sunk to that level.
  
  
• By executive order, through the back door, and in the middle of the night, politicians whose point of view is imbalanced in favor of business continue to push public-private sector "partnerships". Using flowery language these sound like a good thing and continue to thrive because they remain too often unquestioned. What they are is a way to drive what used to be government services provided to taxpayers "at cost" into profit produceers for private companies - they are corporate handouts at the expense of taxpayers.



• While it is proper to monitor and question a lot of noncritical government programs and services there needs to be a reasonable agreement that basic security, health, transportation, and environmental protections belong in the government, run by the government for the betterment of its citizens, not for profit.

As isolated instances, where you live may be seeing only the first small waves in this ripple effect. Perhaps parking control, prison services, rural mail delivery or school lunches are the only visible signs. But have you ever gotten a single tax refund check from any level of government stating that since they are saving money with these "public-private" partnerships those savings are being returned to the taxpayers? No, probably not.

Challenge your government to be a good government and to provide the services that are the core of their reason for existing. Giving away pieces of America to the lowest bidder and turning every municipal service into a profit center is just bad governing, period.