Income Tax Debate
(files.catbox.moe)
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The biggest problem with the toll roads is that the toll road companies get sweetheart deals from the state to lease the land for the toll roads.
It is often something like a dollar a year, meanwhile the toll road companies make huge money cutting corners on maintenance and initial construction.
Like using asphalt instead of concrete for the roadway on a 15 year lease.
By the time the lease is up the section gets turned over to the state, the entire roadway will need to be repaved.
I worked for a state DOT and my Dept dealt with toll road companies so I have seen the sweet deals made.
Sweet deals aren't the problem. Problem is making the deals properly and enforcing them.
Having clauses to maintain the roads all the way to last day of lease means you have good people working for you in govt, and enforcing them and having big penalties for lack of follow through means you have more good people .
No company wants a toll road lease if they can't make money, and no state should give them freely without assurances of care.
Ultimately, if fed and state can't care for them, let the private sector. Yes, if done correctly (like everything else) it will work.
The problems is, the deals are never done so there are equal partners.
The deals are always the result of someone getting paid off to help the toll road operators make more money and then the roads are always in horrible condition when they are turned back over to the state.
In an idea world your methods would work, but we all know govt at all levels is driven by graft and corruption because no one is ever held accountable.
Not trying to be argumentative and you do have a point.
Just bringing up 2 things:
Absolute statements are frequently wrong. You used the word always, so just letting you know in this case saying "always" isn't true.
Years ago gov. Mitchell Daniels was not a perfect Governor of Indiana, but he solved a LOT of issues, including the issue of the 80/90 toll road across the northern part of the state. The state had run it for years, done some crappy leases, and the solutions never worked. Terrible roads and draining money from the state. Mis-management galore. So Daniels comes in and says, OK, we've given the state a chance, others chances, were gonna lease private at no profit ("for a dollar") and be done. He was almost lynched for it, but proof was in the pudding.
He said just sit and watch, and while yes, the state didn't make money, it stopped losing money too. The private firms came through and the roads were fixed and became better.
After all that complaining his reply was something similar to, it's not costing taxpayer money and the roads are fixed and safe. What's the problem?
I still stand by my 'always' statement.
The solution of giving sweetheart deals to private companies, that are campaign donors quite often, is ignoring the extremely poorly run DOT Depts in most states.
How about we fix the Depts that are funded to maintain and build roads so they can effectively use our tax money, instead of making political insiders money?
As I mentioned, the vast majority of these tolls roads are not adequately maintained towards the end of their terms and the state is left with the enormous costs of performing needed repairs once the right of way has been handed back to the state.
If we are going to privatize DOT duties then let's do it. But let's not allow a DOT to be utterly broken and then ''solve' the problem with partial privatization.
Partial privatization results in each party pointing fingers at the other when something goes catastrophically wrong, with the the state usually footing the bill.
The example you gave 'solved' the problem while allowing the much bigger problem to fester and worsen.
As I mentioned, I worked in a state DOT dept that dealt with these issues, we studied programs in other states to come up with solutions and all of these 'solutions' ignored the systemic problems in the DOT system.
BTW - Merry Christmas, Fren!
Hope you had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends.
Addition. So what if they lease for a dollar? If the state doesn't have to care for it, they save 10s to 100s of millions, and the road will be taken care of . One less thing the govt has to worry about.