Should a governor be allowed to sell assets of the state they govern?

[SoCalDem]

Years ago when Indiana sold the toll road to Spain, I posted the article, it drew little interest, but now people are starting to pay closer attention.

It's not only sales to foreign countries (like the Dubai parking lot/meters sale/lease in Chicago). Local officials sell off parks, buildings, power plants, etc. too.

These elected officials are transitory people in the lives of a community/state, but the long-term/permanent damage they do can last forever, and is often irreparable.

People elect others to do a job for the community/state , NOT to hold a fire-sale, auctioning off assets to the highest bidder so they can plug holes in a budget mess they caused themselves.

Would Mom & Dad "sell/lease" the bathrooms of your home, and install a coin-slot so you had to pay every time you entered the bathroom?

Infrastructures require maintenance, upgrading, and taking federal (or state tax) money to build them, then ignoring them for decades and then offering them up "for sale" ( a 75 -99 yr lease might as well be a sale), is not helping the community.

One person (often serving only 4 yrs) should NOT have the power to sell off assets built & paid for by the people they claim to "serve".

They should have to put stuff like that up for a special vote, and the details should be spelled out in 6th grade language so that anyone could understand exactly what the result of such a thing would be..

Finding out what a prior governor (or city council, or county commission, or whatever) did with community/state assets, too late to undo it, is ridiculous.

there is a place for private ownership and there is also a place for community/state ownership. Ask anyone who lives in a place where they once had municipal ownership of services, and then they were sold to private companies, how much "better-worse" their services are now. You can choose to not use a toll road or to not park in Chicago, but you often have NO choice about which company delivers your water, power, natural gas, trash pick up, sewer service etc. If a community owns & operates these services the cost will almost always be less than when a private entity buys & operates them.

Somewhere along the line, people forgot that there is an expense to upkeep, and selling off an aging "whatever" to the highest bidder is not an effective way to solve that problem. It may solve the problem for right now, but upgrades/rebuilding WILL be done by the private owner, and the costs passed on to you through higher prices & lost community/state revenues...and in the end you lose because you pay higher prices, and the money goes NOT TO YOUR COMMUNITY/STATE, but to a private company or foreign country..

[Baron von Stueben]

1. Of course not. However, the legislature can pass legislation and the governor

can choose to sign it or not.

[locahungaria]

2. Well put.....K & R!! n/t

[RKP5637]

3. This is a very naive uninformed citizenry and it will come back to haunt this

and future generations.

[kelly1mm]

4. The Governor by themselves, no. Yes if the legislature approves. nt

[hay rick]

5. But government is the problem.

Our commercial media has relentlessly sold the libertarian meme that government and the taxes and fees needed to support them are bad until proven otherwise. This becomes self-fulfilling prophecy when governments are starved of the cash needed to do their jobs properly by the competition of politicians to always promise lower taxes. Sadly, when the infrastructure starts to crumble from years of budget-cutting neglect, the consequences of foolish short-term cost-saving is likely to be interpreted as proof that government is inept. Confirmation bias wins and competent governance loses.

Enter the "white knight"- aka the well-connected corporation that just happened to make generous donations to the campaigns of key elected officials. It's just a sophisticated form of looting.

[cascadiance]

6. Nope, they should be put in prison as the thieves they are when they do this too!

... along with the crooks that participate in this theft that pay them to be able to buy these goods from these "fire sales" (Kochs, etc.)

[Xithras]

7. Yes.

I don't like laws that handcuff our leaders. If you don't want people selling off state property, don't elect people that want to sell that property off.

The problem isn't that government leaders have too much power. The problem is that voters spend too little time researching their candidates and vote for the people that support these insane concepts.

Fot better or worse, we get the leadership we elect.

[rfranklin]

8. A bill was just introduced in Congress by a dem to recoup Federal funds before such sales...

could be enacted. I think this is a great idea to discourage these crooks who are stealing public property by selling it off, usually without competitive bids, or any thought about how it will affect the public in the future.

The parking meters in Chicago are now owned by some assholes in Dubai courtesy of Goldman Sachs--and it costs $5 an hour to park now.

[SoCalDem]

9. That's a start, but unless they can claw back ownership

it's still a loss for the state/community. The contracts need to be voided....and then put the sale up for a special election..

Being elected to public office should not grant OWNERSHIP of public assets. Stewardship, maybe..but not the power to sell it. If a governor wants to sell his own home to Dubai..go for it..but no governor or elected legislature should be able to sell public assets without a special election where all the ramifications are spelled out

[sinkingfeeling]

10. No, public holdings are just that. They belong to the public, not the governor nor the legislature.