Parking Meters for Sale

Slate has a good article about the temptation to privatize America's infrastructure:

[A] 2008 GAO report looked at the privatizations of the Indiana Toll Road and the Chicago Skyway. It found many benefits to these deals, including the availability of cash upfront and the transfer of both operating and financial risks to the private sector. But it also warned that these deals could result in a loss of long-term value—stealing from the future to pay bills today. The GAO also noted that the United States failed to emulate Europe's example of employing a systematic, standardized set of procedures to make sure that such important considerations were taken into account—and that debate would be held in public.

Steve Clowney

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