Foreign companies are buying, running U.S. toll roads, bridges

[struggle4progress]

Some see it as lifting burden off taxpayer; others condemn it
Sunday, July 16, 2006
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON

Roads and bridges built by U.S. taxpayers are starting to be sold off, and so far, foreign-owned companies are doing the buying.

On a single day in June, an Australian-Spanish partnership paid $3.8 billion to lease the Indiana Toll Road. An Australian company bought a 99-year lease on Virginia's Pocahontas Parkway, and Texas officials decided to let a Spanish-American partnership build and run a toll road from Austin to Seguin for 50 years.

Few people know that the tolls from the U.S. side of the tunnel between Detroit and Windsor, Canada, go to a subsidiary of an Australian company - which also owns a bridge in Alabama ...

http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ%2FMGArticle%2FWSJ_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149189177426&path=!nationworld&s=

[TomInTib]

1. Do you think ANY other nation would allow this?

I don't.

What do we sell next? Towns and cities?

[Erika]

3. It is happening, world wide.

It's the globalist's dirty little secret that was leaked.

[TomInTib]

9. Really?

Other countries are selling toll roads and bridges, etc.?

I guess I have missed that one.

[Kutjara]

13. It's true.

In Europe, many toll roads are leased or owned by foreign consortia, with new ones being planned or built every day. It's not considered a big deal, because the host country retains control of the strategic uses of the roads and regulates things like safety, maximum tolls, signage, retail concessions, labor relations etc.

[TomInTib]

14. So all of these taxpayer-supported projects are now commodities?

To be traded away to the highest biddder?

This just blows me away.

[Kutjara]

15. The way the idea is being pitched to the taxpayer...

...is that the new infrastructure projects are 'self-financing,' so that construction is paid-for by private investors who are repaid from tolls. Taxpayers are told that they're saving money because they don't have to pay for roadbuilding.

Regarding existing roads, the pitch is slightly different. It's ongoing maintenence and upgrades that are paid for from tolls, so that taxpayers don't have to pay for this stuff themselves. Also, the amount the private companies pay to buy or lease the roads goes into the Government's general revenue pool, and is therefore available to fund other programs.

This all sounds marvellous until you realize that tax rates never seem to get reduced and all the major social programs are just as underfunded as they were before the 'windfall' money came rolling in. So basically, the roads are being sold to pay for pork, additional bureaucracy or, in recent years, to piss away on stupid foreign wars.

The reality is that we're hocking the family silver, remortgaging the house, selling off the back yard and maxing out our cards, just so we can blow it all on foreign adventures. When everything's been sold, borrowed against and liquidated, we'll have to deal with the consequences of having no value left in the very land beneath our feet.

[TomInTib]

16. This repy of yours should be its own thread

Well, maybe not.

But, so very well put, Kutjara.

Damn us all for allowing this to come to pass.

[Erika]

2. Corporate globalists are in league with W.

We need to do away with all borders so workers can follow the jobs, unite, and demand fair compensation.

There is no longer any sense of American business employing and serving its workers. It's every globalist company for itself. The workers need to unite. Down with the borders.

[aquart]

4. And how long do you think that would take, offhand?

I just love the kind of idealism where everybody ends up dead.

[struggle4progress]

10. Yes: we must become Internationalists to fight an international fight.

[RoyGBiv]

5. Heard a rumor ...

Heard a rumor that I-35 may be turned into a toll road from the Mexican border all the way North and end up being managed by a Mexican company.

I have NO idea if this is even slight true, but my instinctual reaction was that it was BS. This makes me re-think that a bit.

[Nite Owl]

6. Has Lou Dobbs been on this one?

It seems to be something he would be all over. I rarely watch so does anyone know?

[baby_bear]

7. Good point, Nite Owl. Let's apprise him of this.

The global companies are also buying up water rights, which is the scariest thing.
They buy your water and then sell it back to you.

Hey, Lou! You listening? The next war will be over water.

b_b

[Nite Owl]

8. That is scarey

Let's all send him this link!

[DianaForRussFeingold]

11. This pretty much sums it up in pictures IMO!

:mad:

[Nite Owl]

12. Good ones

it sure does. Gotta save them too!

[depakid]

17. That's just insane

Actually- being a Westerner- I find the whole notion of funding highways through toll roads insane, but to suck the profits right out of peoples' own communities takes a special kind idiocy.