Matt Tully professes an inability to understand the controversy over leasing the Toll Road. But, he drove the toll road from Ohio to Illinois on a Monday from 8:30 a.m. to about 2:30 p.m. and the traffic moved pretty well. Go figure.
Anyway, the controversy is this: a) the people of Indiana paid to build the thing and are turning it over to a private contractor to make a profit – the profit is going to come, not from efficiencies of the market place, but from political insulation enabling an ability to raise tolls and cut services; b) motorists of northern Indiana will effectively be disproportionately paying for road projects in other parts of the state; and c) the excessive 75 year duration of the arrangement unduly ties the hands of future generations. That Tully has “never understood” this controversy might have something to do with his living in Central Indiana. However, even if one believes the benefit from leasing the toll road outweighs these factors, the controversy itself isn’t that tough to understand.
I don’t think it matters where one lives (Tully is actually from Lake County), as what you believe the role of government and public property should be. The more I think about this, the more I oppose it on the basis that the road should just be privately owned if it is going to be privately operated. The people of Indiana shouldn’t have built a road, or any other infrastructure (like, stadiums) so that they can become the cash cows of a few- especially non-citizens.
It is just a result of location that makes it such that the money is collected in the northern part of the state and redistributed elsewhere. I think that if the toll road cut across central Indiana, the result would have been the same, because Daniels was looking to cash in on a state asset, and this was the most lucrative he could find. It allowed him to ‘balance the books’. *cough*
Oh well- to each according to their need, from each according to their ability.
tully has written a lot of lazy, facile columns in his day, but this one takes it to a whole new level.
I agree; this was a truly strange article.
I’m not generally a fan of privatization – I think the benefits are generally overstated, the costs understated, and many government programs provide benefits that aren’t helped much by private sector incentives. However, I do generally support the toll road privatization because I believe that political factors have interfered with running the toll road as efficiently as possible. Specifically, political pressure to keep the tolls low led to the toll road bringing in less money than it really needed. Also, I think that Cinque-Macquarie overpaid.
“Also, I think that Cinque-Macquarie overpaid”
They WILL get their money back and then some.
By hook or crook(Daniels)
One of the real travesties of this whole fiasco is the treatment of the workers on the Toll Road. When Mitch Daniels removed by executive fiat the right of state employees to collectively bargain, we took a big step backward as a state. By then putting the Toll Road in the hands of private management, another nail was placed in the coffin of worker’s rights.
Last year Toll Road maintenance workers narrowly voted down an attempt to be represented by a union. Since then some of the more vocal supporters of that unionization attempt have been fired on some very specious allegations, or otherwise treated unfairly as to scheduling, advancement, etc. And these people risk their lives every day out there to do their best at maintaining this highway.
Now toll takers have won the right to be represented by the Teamster’s Union. Of course the company managing the Toll Road is dragging their feet in any real attempt to do right by these employees. While Indiana toll takers are making between $11 and $14 an hour, their counterparts in Illinois and Ohio are making an average of $20.
This privatization is the worst thing that ever happened to this part of the state, and with an intransigent management, it’s not going to get better any time soon.
Outsourcing is usually something that is done because of lack of balls.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some valid reasons to outsource. For example, why hire a janitor for 10 hours a week when you can hire a company that employs a janitor full-time and subs out his services.
But, when scale isn’t the issue (and it isn’t much of the time outsourcing is used), then the issue is lack of balls by management.
For the state, it allows drastic changes to be done without the blame going (directly) to those that are elected.
Another example I love is a company I know of that outsourced their entire IT department. The new outsourced IT department saved the company $8 million. However, it wasn’t that the new one was better. The old one would be told to do something, and they would do it. No one said “Well, if you want us to do that, it will cost $XXX.”. However, once it was outsourced, only the base support was included in the price. Every time management came along to ask for something more, the sales rep for the IT outsourcing company showed them the price tag. Management then would rarely choose to do it.
If the previous IT manager had the balls to say “Here are the REAL costs to what you want”, the in-house group would have been fine.
Going back to the state issues, look at the backlash when the BMV shut down some branches. That is the first thing a outsourced BMV would do as well, but it is much harder to get your complaints to the outsourcer.
Point is, we can’t complain about government reducing services AND outsourcing. If we complain too loudly about cutting services, they’ll outsource it and someone else take the heat.
Bob, public employees should not have the right to unionize. The only thing I like about Mitch is that he kicked the unions out of state government.
“Workers rights” have nothing to do with it. The history of public employee unions in this country is nothing more than conspiracy after conspiracy to bilk the taxpayer out of more and more money.
The monopoly power of government combined with unionized employees pretty much by definition is going to lead to bad outcomes.