With all due respect, Narses, you are ignorant of history. In fact, every major canal in the United States was built with taxpayer money. The first serious attempt at a canal in the U.S., the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company was originally a private venture, but they failed to raise enough money from private investors and the canal was never built. The Blackstone Canal Company (1823) was organized through an act of the Massachusetts legislature, not by private investors. The Erie Canal was a government-sponsored project from the beginning: in 1817 New York governor DeWitt Clinton's arm-twisting resulted in an appropriation of $7 million in taxpayers money for startup. In 1905 the Erie was replaced by the New York State Barge Canal, which was completed in 1918 at a cost of $96.7 million taxpayer dollars. The Champlain Canal? Taxpayer-funded. The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal? Your tax dollars at work. The Great Lakes Waterway? Public. Saint Lawrence Seaway? Public. The entire freaking Intracoastal Waterway? Public.
I dare you to name any major canal in the U.S. that was built entirely with private funds. Go ahead. Just one.
many roads and airports are built privately
Bull crap, Narses. It wasn't until 1996 that Congress passed legislation even allowing existing airports to solicit private investors. In fact, only one privately funded commercial airport exists in the entire United States: Branson Airport, in Branson, Mo., built with $155 million in investor money. All other commercial airports in the U.S. are publicly-owned and publicly-financed.
And which roads are built privately? If by "roads" you mean "highways", I don't know of one. Sure, there were plenty of privately-owned toll roads back in the pre-automobile era, but these were rarely paved; by the turn of the last century, the number of privately-financed, privately-owned roads in the U.S. was essentially nil.
And I noticed you didn't mention dredged harbors (practically all publicly owned), lighthouses (ditto), the aircraft navigational system (government owned and operated), GPS (ditto), the commercial airline industry (created and sustained by taxpayer money), ship channels, ferries, and tunnels -- practically all of which are entirely supported by public money. Hell, the only two forms of transportation that I can think of that are entirely owned and operated by private investors are the Goodyear blimp and the railroads -- and even they got their start thanks to great lashings of taxpayer cash.
Now I want you to be a grownup and admit you are wrong.
Like that's going to happen...
PROTIP: unless you have some evidence to support your assertions, keep them to yourself — or risk being made a fool of in front of everyone, as I have just done to you.
The Great Dismal Swamp Canal was suggested by George Washington in 1763, authorized by Virginia under Governor Patrick Henry in 1784, authorized by the North Carolina legislature in 1790, work began in 1793 and the canal opened in 1805. It traversed that swamp and connected the Chesapeake Bay of Virginia with Albemarle Sound in North Carolina. It's still in use today, and is a popular, historic segment of the Intracoastal Waterway. It's the oldest canal in continual use in the United States.
Yawn. History escapes you as badly as both english and logic do. Sad.