Exactly!
Those who misrepresent for-profit tollways as being the same as projects that pay off their own cost and then are made freeways exhibit either economic ignorance or willful misrepresentation of the facts.
They misrepresent COST and PRICE as being one and the same -- and they are definitely not so.
COST = (Material + Labor + Overhead)
PRICE = COST plus PROFIT
...and it is that additional (huge, unconstrained, operating) PROFIT (which will be shipped overseas) that makes the TTC a huge financial ripoff for all of Texas.
It's the same as the difference in mowing your own yard or paying some landscaping firm big bucks to do it for you.
If you want to be lazy and spend your own money, that's your business. Just don't claim that the two methods are financially equal. And don't try to pass your lazy, spendthrift accounting off on the rest of us and tell us it is a good deal.
Several of these various authorities have said that since they don't have to make a profit, they can do it cheaper than the private sector. That is not necessarily so. In fact, conservatives have proved over and over that the private sector can do it cheaper. OTOH, you democrats want the public sector to do it. Earlier in the year, some one in the media asked Cintra if they would sweeten up there bid on 121, given the fact that NTTA would be bidding on the project. Cintra said that they didn't have to, that their price would be cheaper.
While it is true that the public authority doesn't have to make a profit, they do have to remain fiscally sound. If they don't, the liability falls back onto the state. And if numerous authorities stumble, more liability falls to the state. You shouldn't overlook the importance of the fact that the private sector is assuming all liability.