John Krull, director of Franklin College's Pulliam School of Journalism, in the Evansville Courier and Press:
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I will admit that, from the start, I haven't been a big fan of leasing the toll road.
Initially, my objection focused on the length of the lease. If we were going to remove an asset as valuable as the toll road from the control not just of my children, but likely my grandchildren and great-grandchildren — and possibly even my great-great-grandchildren — then I would have liked to have seen a little less giddiness and a lot more sobriety accompanying the decision-making process. Instead, as soon as word of the $3.8 billion bid came in, the Daniels administration behaved — and continues to behave — as if Christmas came early.
As I have thought about it more, though, my real objection to the toll road lease is that it is a perfect example of the disingenuousness (at best) and outright dishonesty (at the worst) that is at the heart of our current political dialogue.
The argument for leasing the toll road was as follows: The state can't run the toll road in a way that will make it profitable so it would be better to let the private sector do it and get some money in return so we can fix a few of our other roads.
That argument always was circular. A large part of the reason the state couldn't run the toll road profitably was that legislators — primarily Republicans — called toll hikes tax increases and wouldn't vote for them. In their world view, government is always the problem and taxes are always evil.
To get around the trap they created for themselves with their own rhetoric, the state's politicians leased the toll road to a private company, which then hiked the tolls. Apparently, rate hikes imposed on taxpayers cease to be a political problem for office holders once those office holders have outsourced the tax increase.
But there is a cost to such slithering.
In a self-governing society, taxes are supposed to be something a free people pay to themselves — an investment in building the infrastructure that supports them all. When government runs a budget surplus, it is a savings account that we can draw upon to build things that will benefit everyone — or return the funds to the individual taxpayers. When government runs a deficit, it is, by and large, a debt we owe to ourselves.
Either way, the choices remain ours, because we're supposed to control the process through our votes — and the votes of the people we elect to represent us.
In this case, if the state had hiked the tolls, the funds for the next 70 years would have gone to helping the people of this state.
Instead, the hikes that will come for the next three to four generations will benefit the shareholders and employees of the company that holds the lease. That's a good deal for the company — but less so for the rest of us.
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http://www.courierpress.com/news/2012/may/31/major-moves-deal-an-error-spurred-by-political/
An earlier post on this issue can be found here:
http://indianapropertytaxreporter.blogspot.com/2012/05/indiana-toll-road-lease-still.html
