Grassroots defeat GOLIATH

TURF ^ | Friday, 03 July 2009 | Terri Hall

[stevie_d_64]

Today, ordinary Texans brought Governor Rick Perry’s road privatization, toll road, and Trans Texas Corridor agenda to a screeching halt. The Legislature adjourned without re-authorizing private toll road contracts called Comprehensive Development Agreements (or CDAs). The grassroots scored another victory by KILLING the revolving fund in HB 1, preventing the $2 billion in bonds from being spent to build toll roads, convert freeways to toll roads, or subsidize private toll deals, as well as protecting public employee pension funds from risky toll roads schemes that are failing all over the world.

“It is a hard-fought victory for the grassroots. We killed Goliath, not just Perry’s controversial toll road policies, but we defeated a sold out Senate and the BIG MONEY, the lobbyists, who sank millions into pushing for the sale of Texas highways,” Hank Gilbert, Texas TURF Board member and President of Piney Woods Subregional Planning Commission.

“We applaud Rep. David Leibowitz, once again, for standing up for Texas taxpayers and leading the charge to fix the bill that created a revolving fund that would have raided teacher retirement and public employee pension funds for risky toll road schemes. He authored the bill to KILL the Trans Texas Corridor and another to prevent the conversion of freeways to tollways during the regular session. He’s a proven taxpayer hero and Texans owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude,” said TURF Founder, Terri Hall.

“However, no session is without a few villains. CDA proponents and senate leaders like John Carona and Steve Ogden need to be taken to the woodshed for promising to promote the MOST expensive method of road funding, CDAs, next session, and for wanting to continue to raid public pension funds over the LOUD objections of Texans.

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

Governor Perry - please don’t disappoint....can someone explain what has gone on here?

[stevie_d_64]

BAck in the 2007 Texas legislative session, the powers at be decided it might be a good idea to shelve the TTC (Trans Texas Corridor) because of the overwhelming negative support for it once the details got out about it...

Some of us knew it was going to come back either full bore, or covertly to continue work on it...

The funding mechanisms to do this were tabbed CDA’s (Comprehensive Development Agreements) and PPS’s (Public/Private Agreements)...Those mechanismas were embedded within the TxDOT’s (Texas Department of Transportation) funding for the next two years...

This special session was to pull the woll over folks who were not paying attention...So this group called TURF, and a few of us grassroots folks stepped up and burned up the phonelines, visited with our state elected officials before the special session and they then took it back to Austin...

They successfully neutered the TxDOT funding to take away the ability to continue work above or below radar on the TTC...

Which is basically what Texans want...

As much as I am about a 50/50 supporter of Gov. Perry...He can go pound sand on this issue...

I am also of the opinion that it is unlikely, although we are continuing to call his office and our state reps and senastors to call another special session to address another few issues like:

Voter ID

Employer Parking lot bill (A pro CHL bill)

and the Campus Carry bill (another pro-gun, pro CHL bill)

Gov. Perry may lete us stew on that since we cut the TTC off at the knees..

But we’ll have to see...

[In veno, veritas]

My guess is that some people want the government to subsidize travel by automobile, and so celebrate the end of road privatization. There could be a number of other things in this that aren’t clearly stated, like maybe property rights issues or not reducing taxes already designated for roads. Not very clear, though.

[Dawgreg]

Why is Perry so hell-bent on getting this through? Grassroots movements appear to be our only chance of fighting these pompous, power-hungry politicians and getting our country and states back! God bless Texas!

[Quickgun]

I'm not thinking Perry will be too disappointed that this was shot down. Perry proposes things to “float” the issue, some of us have noticed. If it draws too much criticism, he'll let it go (usually)without too much fanfare I support him on most issues, oppose him on a few,All said, we could do a lot worse for a governor.Some of my best friends think he is a RHINO, but..some of those friends think that anyone who is not from their immediate family, doesn't agree with them 100% on every issue, and doesn't personally consult them on every issue is a RHINO....

[UCFRoadWarrior]

The main problem with any government-privitization idea is that privitization ends up costing taxpayers more money...in the long run.

Whenever something is privitized, the company, business, or organization involved has to make money in order to stay in business. They have to bring in more revenue than a government entity would....thus when its government funds for privitization...taxpayers end up paying more in tax dollars.

If having private toll roads is such a good idea....then let those who want it done to do so without government funds. It never happens

[UCFRoadWarrior]

Kudos to Texans for killing this taxpayer waste scheme.

The Nutty Globalists want taxpayers to fund their schemes...they do not want to put their own money behind it.

As much as people are praising Gov Perry for his recent “seperatist” stand...he still a Liberal Globalist....and thinks “world first” before thinking Texas or US first.

And, with this TTC being killed....it will make it easier for other states to kill such taxpayer-wasteful schemes

Also, the loss of soverignty from these schemes is something that should not be taken lightly

[stevie_d_64]

Just remember...Senator Corona vows to bring the TTC back in 2011...

Meanwhile, other states down the road (pardon the pun) are not going to move on their side of the deal till Texas gets rolled...

This thing is supposed to go through Oklahoma, Kansas and on up to Missouri, from what I can best recall...

Nobody from up that way seems to bent out of shape about it, yet...I hope we can keep the fight here in Texas...

[Carry_Okie]

The Nutty Globalists want taxpayers to fund their schemes...they do not want to put their own money behind it.

They're not nutty at all if we're dumb enough to fall for it, but it's a lot worse than an economic problem. It's a military problem.

It was transportation corridors like these by which the English maintained their effort to cow the South African Dutch in the Boer Wars via their famous "scorched earth" policy. They merely starved 25,000 women and children. Don't think it can't happen here.

[tpmintx]

For those not from Texas, the idea of privately-funded toll roads sounds like a good idea on the surface. However, the plan for the “Trans Texas Corridor” was an enormous land grab. The plan involved handing eminent domain power to a Spanish corporation, and setting up a mile-wide right of way for the length of the state from Mexico to Oklahoma.

The other big failure in the plan was the plan to sell off existing, paid-for infrastructure to this same corporation.

I hope and pray that Governor Perry, a long-time RINO and former Dimocrat, will stay on the Conservative band-wagon that he has been riding since 0bama’s inauguration. He faces a challenge from the middle in Kay Bailey Hutchison, which will only serve to weaken the conservative movement in Texas.

[sockmonkey]

Thanks for posting this sd64.

In San Antonio, the 75 cents a mile on some roads was not a happy prospect. Even when they floated forty cents a mile, I figured if I took I-10 and 1604 to Church on Sundays, it would’ve been almost 8 dollars each way.

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

Thanks for the added information.

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

Well toll roads are coming to my state, NC, it seems - but so far it has not been passed in our Legislature, thank God!

[In veno, veritas]

How does the government run something more efficiently than a private business? Especially given that we have a lot of short term politicians whose goal is to build a road or bridge with his name on it meanwhile existing roads are not maintained (such as the MN bridge collapse).

This is the entire point, which I see that you are hinting at: we have too many roads, there is no mechanism in place that determines the efficient allocation of roads. If the roads are privatized, then yes, we'll lose some, or at least they'll go back to gravel or something of the like. But it is just simply untrue that the government is somehow more efficient than a market system for distribution.

As for the third paragraph, why should anyone want to use a private road when the government is the competition and provides one for free? This same thing applies to low cost health care, no one provides it since the government underbids everyone else in order to have a "fair" rate. Here is a good allegory: http://theunbrokenwindow.com/2009/05/12/thank-goodness-for-the-government-shoe-agency/

[In veno, veritas]

That doesn't sound like privatization, and who knows, this article might not be privatization at all either. If the government hands out construction to whomever it pleases, then the roads aren't privatized; they're still under control by the government. In French, they have a different word to differentiate, “a concession.” (http://blog.mises.org/archives/006586.asp). If tolls got to be to high on a road, with private companies competing, another company would build another road with lower tolls to compete.

[Ben Ficklin]

""BAck in the 2007 Texas legislative session, the powers at be decided it might be a good idea to shelve the TTC...."

Incorrect.

They decided that they would put a temporary moratorium on Comprehensive Developement Agreements(CDAs) excepting those that had already been made. Plus, they implemented a mechanism whereby NTTA would get right of refusal on some of those projects. The temporary moratorium would be in place until a commission would decide the issue.

So, the projects that NTTA took over all ran into problems. The commission appointed to look into the issue, recommended the state to use CDAs.

TURF can toot their own horn if they want to but the legislature didn't raise road taxes and it didn't index the road tax.

The federal infrastructure stimulus provided interim money which allowed the legislature to punt the decision into the 2011 session.

[af_vet_rr]

Why is Perry so hell-bent on getting this through?

There's a lot of fishy stuff that has gone in when it comes to Perry's roll in all of this. Rudy Giuliani's law firm was involved with some of the TTC work at one point, which is partly why Perry was a Giuliani supporter during the Presidential primaries last year.

There were no-bid contracts handed out to Spanish companies, who conveniently bought into American companies so they could pretend it was an American project.

You have to remember that this is just a segment of a much larger plan that goes from Mexico up to Canada.

[af_vet_rr]

Meanwhile, other states down the road (pardon the pun) are not going to move on their side of the deal till Texas gets rolled... This thing is supposed to go through Oklahoma, Kansas and on up to Missouri, from what I can best recall...

I think a lot more people in Oklahoma are aware of it. An Oklahoma Senator showed up last year at one of the protests, and I've heard that Oklahomans were questioning some of the surveying teams working in Oklahoma.

People in Kansas and Missouri are probably well aware of it, given that they have an inland port already built that will be a part of it.

Here are some other relevant links:

North American Super Corridor Coalition
SPP.gov - Security and Prosperity Partnership Of North America
Wikipedia entry on SPP (a useful wikipedia article for once)

[GladesGuru]

“They have to bring in more revenue than a government entity would....thus when its government funds for privitization...taxpayers end up paying more in tax dollars.”

Sorry, but I suggest you have a false premise of three in the above sentence.

1. Government has no reality check in the free market.

2. Goobers in gooberment agencies get vastly more benefits, retirement pay, and other goodies than do free market employees.

3. Gooberment agencies don’t reduce employees, remove regulations/rules, ad nauseam.

Private charity considers a 28% overhead super high, whereas gooberment help from a gooberment agency does well to get 28% to the “needy” they putatively serve.