Reasons' reasons wrong -- regarding Private
Toll roads.
Analysis: of "Should
States Sell Their Toll Roads?" http://www.reason.org/ps334.pdf
In
recent months, INDOT and
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels have sited the Reason
Foundation-- the think tank behind Privatized Tolling of Roads.
The
Illinois Toll Road sold
to
Cintra of Spain for 1.8 Billion Dollars. It
excited proponents of privatization. It was Indiana Governor
Daniels'
Model for the
Sale of the Indiana Toll Road. We quote heavily from Reason's pro
privatized tolling document below in the paragraphs indented. See
what the Reason Foundation, have to say
about the sale of our roads in their document The Global Toll Roads Industry.
These
privatized toll road proponents
are blinded by their pro privatization bias:
The
Global Toll Roads Industry.
"Even
before it closed on the Chicago Skyway, the private
concessionaire
had begun to reduce its costs. It hired a large parking building
operator to provide toll collection services, since collecting parking
fees isn't much different from collecting tolls. This subcontractor
found he could hire toll collectors for $12 an hour, less than
two thirds the prevailing pay rate at the city and among state toll
authorities.
61
State
toll authorities are notorious over-payers, at least in the northeast
and midwest, as evidenced by the flood of applications they get for
vacant jobs on the rare occasions one isn’t filled by an insider.
Higher employee pay means higher tolls."
Note that
they support the
Foreign privatization company for
lowering American's wages, because they claim "Higher employee pay
means higher tolls.""
Unfortunately this is incorrect. The privatized Illinois toll
road
doubled the tolls charge the motorists in the first six months.
What's
wrong with this picture?
BTW, Illinois was
showing a profit with this road before it
was sold:
"In the last year for which we have accounts it made
$43.2
million in toll revenues while incurring expenses of $34.8 million for
a profit of $8.4 million."
If the
state had doubled the
tolls as did the Spanish who leased it, and traffic continued to
use the road at the same volume, the profits would have increased to
$43.2 million for one year. This return would have yielded the same
$1.8 Billion in 41.6 years. For the private company to recover
their investment and then make a profit in less than $41.6 years, the
costs to operated the road must be reduced. Do they have magic
asphalt of better quality, or are they simply removing or lowering the
benefits and wages of more US citizen's jobs and then providing a
more costly toll?
If
you think these proponents of privatized tolling don't
realize that the tolls charge will and are increasing, we share this
quote:
"State toll authorities own very valuable business
property.
New
highways are extremely difficult and expensive to build so an
established road in a busy urban area or a turnpike on a heavily
trafficked interurban corridor will often command higher toll rates
than have been set by the political processes of state authorities."
The Tolling proponents
are so biased toward privatization from
any quarter and sure of their dislike of government jobs, that they
seem to forget their goal of providing
benefit
to USA road users, taxpayers, and U.S. residents seeking
employment. North Americans seem forgotten in the excitement over
public property liquidation to privatized tolling regardless of the
"privateer's" home country:
"The group that bought the business of the Chicago
Skyway is
half based in Madrid and the other half in Sydney. While strictly
accurate, that characterization doesn't really convey their essence.
They are both international in character with operations and employees
hired and located in different countries."
So what!
Are we happy that our privatized road
transportation dollars are now being spent to further increase the US
trade deficit?
The Reason Foundation and Daniels claim to be anti
taxation, but for them a
toll ceases to be a tax when it is sent to a foreign owned
corporation. They so hate Government that any job provided by
government is bad and any provided by business is good even if the
Hoosier job lost goes to raise a higher or new tax on other hoosiers to
provide benefit on some other continent.
Still why are they so excited about providing jobs
for
foreigners while they relish lower pay and lesser benefits for the
Americans who operate the road on a daily basis?
How many USA
motorist will think their taxes were lowered when the cost of driving
to work on the same road doubles.
If their
position is clear to you, drop
us an e-mail.
Frankly, we don't get it.
[Editors note:
Since we published this article, we have learned that making highways
too expensive for the average user is exactly the motivation.
Congestion can be mitigated by pricing the average joe off the luxury
routes and removing the ride-share and low emission vehicle lanes from
existing interstates. See documents concerning Tolling and
Pricing as it became part of the latest highway funding bill: http://www.innobriefs.com/abstracts/2004/jul04.html]
Libertarians and Republican
have often been among our
strongest supporters opposing I-69 for property right reasons and
because the I-69
project is such a boondoggle project. We ask them to consider two
things:
- Roads are already paid for
by a user tax. We by fuel buy the gallon and use it by the mile.
- State owned roads of
the USA are a different animal. A world where any mega
cooperation
can privatize others private property to compete with another
privatized road(s) would be a world dominated with asphalt and
bulldozer over private* property. And a place of numerous under
utilized or bankrupted
roadways instead of farmland and valuable real-estate. The
bottom line, this is privatization
vs private
property. This is a new tax, where the tax money is
as
likely to next build a road in China as provide benefit to the USA .
Prepared for COUNT US! by
John Smith - Director
COUNT US!
http://www.i69tour.org
(812) 327-6142
*Your understanding of the
word private and the Reason Foundations differ when this issue is
considered. We recommend review of our Glossary of Toll Road
Debate Terms: http://www.i69tour.org/glossary.html
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