The Bush White House wants to privatize our public roads; what else can be privatized?

[brentspeak]

The Bush White House's brilliant idea to maintain our nation's roads: make the public pay to have access to them -- even though the public has already paid for them with its hard-earned tax dollars!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070212/pl_nm/bush_economy_report_transportation_dc

So what other things in the USA can the pencil-neck, chickenhawk, think-tank geeks advocate to be privatized?

Public sidewalks?

Public restrooms? Pay 25-cents to get in; pay 25-cents to get out?

Your ideas...

[Cerridwen]

1. Water - we're part way there.

Clean Air - give 'em time.

[kenny blankenship]

2. Air.

Once the atmosphere has become so contaminated that to breathe it unfiltered is to shorten your life, the brave new frontier of capitalism will be selling you oxygen to live on.

Air, it's tomorrow's bottled water.

[LSparkle]

15. I've already heard commercials for air-purification systems ...

for those who can afford them for their homes. Same as with water purification systems, private security ... Those with the money will be holed up in their little gated community biospheres, where they'll be kept healthy while the rest of us choke on the bad air, drink the bad water and battle each other for the crumbs they leave us.

Sickening ...

[conscious evolution]

28. That was my first thought too.

Why else are they pumping so much crap into the atmosphere?

[sakabatou]

3. Public water-fountains

[Jacobin]

4. Well, they've already privatized government. Corporations own it

lock stock and barrel

[Richard D]

5. A tax on air . . .

. . . calculated on pulmonary capacity time number of breaths per day, calculated yearly at a mandatory physical by the Haliburton Medical Group.

[CrazyOrangeCat]

6. National Parks

National Forests.

All wild lands.

"This land is your land, this land is my land." I'm glad Woody didn't live to see this shit.

[sandnsea]

13. Already doing corporate sponsors

Through the Proud Partners Program

http://www.nationalparks.org/proudpartners/partner_overview-flash.shtml

You get stuff like this, for starters,

http://www.juniorrangergazette.com/page08.htm

[CrazyOrangeCat]

20. They'll paint "Unilever" on the face . . .

. . . of Half Dome.

All of the arches in Arches Nat'l Park will be renamed for Ford cars . . .


I really need a new drug. (Weak smile.)

[manic expression]

7. Why not Congress?

Oh, it kind of is already.

[Patsy Stone]

8. How is it that the only thing they won't allow me to privatize

is my own damn body?

[Sapere aude]

11. You could charge for your services what ever they may be.

Mothers could charge their kids for driving them around. Fathers could charge them for teaching baseball etc.

[Patsy Stone]

19. I'm my own cottage industry!

Regulate away! Brilliant!!

:)

[Sapere aude]

9. Why not make double deck highways? The upper level would be for longer trips.

There would not be as many exits and on ramps. The short trip folks would use the lower level. Most trucks would use the upper level also.

[The Backlash Cometh]

10. They'll do whatever they can get away with.

[Wiley50]

12. I'd Like To See Corporate Welfare Privatized

Let other capitalist pigs pay for it

Then we can save our welfare dollars
for folks who really need it

[WinkyDink]

14. I am sorry to say that my Governor Ed Rendell (D-PA) advocates the same

"leasing" (100 years!) of OUR pay roads to that Spanish consortium.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07028/757183-28.stm

[tabasco]

30. There's something wrong with PennDot.

I have often said they need to completely dismantle PennDot and start from the drawing board.

PA may be the only state where I would support such a notion.

PA really has no excuse for the roads.

[ikojo]

16. While privatization has increased during the Bush

years...the Clinton/Gore administration was big on privatizing. Remember when Gore said how he and Clinton had reduced the size of government? Well, those jobs were privatized. The functions didn't go away but those employees were no longer on the government payroll.

[Horse with no Name]

18. It was the CLINTON Presidency

Not the Gore presidency.
Gore did not set the agenda.
And no, I am not familiar with that statement about reducing the size of the government?
Can you link it?

[ikojo]

23. Well, it was the Clinton/Gore administration for

eight years, but I digress....

Here's a link..

http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/10/25/gore/index.html

"I'll make this clear pledge," Gore said to a small room of supporters at the Little Rock, Ark., Convention Center Tuesday morning. "As president, I will not add to the number of people doing work for the federal government -- not even by one position."

snip

That effort is evidence of his New Democrat roots, he said. His effort, Gore said, reduced "the number of federal positions by 300,000." He neglected to mention that 87 percent of the eliminated jobs came from the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs.

And even if he liked government -- which he doesn't, doesn't, doesn't -- Gore contrasted such an alliance with the foxes Bush wants to let into the chicken coop. "Governor Bush talks a lot about 'trusting the people,'" Gore said. "The question is: Which people does he trust?"

The answer: "Wealthy and powerful interests," Gore said.

[Horse with no Name]

25. I am not familiar with that author

But that reads like a hit-piece.
I'd rather see this referenced somewhere else other than an op-ed.

[ikojo]

27. Ok, maybe this bit from a speech delivered by

Al Gore will do the trick. It was a speech given in 1996 before the National Partnership for Reinventing Government at the National Press Club.

As they say on NBC...in his own words.....

http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/library/speeches/272e.html

Indeed, we have reduced the size of the federal work force by more than 200,000 positions in the last three years. Because of our efforts and our partnership with federal employees, the government work force as a percentage of the civilian work force is now smaller than it has been since 1933. But we haven't just shrunk the size of the government.

[Marr]

17. These guys must bne Ayn Rand cultists.

I fear we may have the dubious disctinction of proving Ayn Rand's ideas to be stupid and unworkable.

[WI_DEM]

21. But, I thought he opposed tax hikes!!!

[Marie26]

22. Presidents

Let's get rid of the illusion & let corporate CEO's have the job.

[Art_from_Ark]

33. We already have a corporate CEO in that position

Former head of the failed Arbusto Oil Corporation

[Telly Savalas]

24. The proposal is to add user fees to roads

It says nothing about privatization. Maybe the government will build and maintain the roads, maybe the private sector will. All that article says is that the plan is to build new roads and charge fees to use them.

My hard earned tax dollars pay for the transit system I use to commute to work everyday, yet I still have to pay a user fee to get on it. Why should some environment-hating asshole who chooses to drive a Hummer to work instead get a free pass?

The flaw in Bush's plan isn't the user fees, but rather that it encourages building new roads in the first place. We have enough roads already. In contrast, the public transit infrastructure in the United States is appallingly underdeveloped. Investing in public transit is a crucial part of any plan to tackle issues of energy independence and the climate crisis.

[brentspeak]

29. Halfway correct. The proposal is to add something called "congestion pricing"

Which is the imposition of flexible toll fees on particular roads at peak hours. It doesn't say that "congestion pricing" would be applied only to new roads.

From the article: "It is increasingly appropriate to charge drivers for some roadway use in the same way the private market charges for other goods and services," the White House said in its annual report on the U.S. economy...."Road space is allocated to drivers who most highly value a reliable and unimpaired commute."

So only people who can afford the higher fee "highly value" a reliable and unimpaired commute? (Also, why should the "environment-hating a$$hole" in the Hummer, who's also paying his tax dollars for the transit system you use, have to pay extra for a transit service he doesn't use? It's an off-topic issue, not really related to the article.)

[Telly Savalas]

32. I pay for the roads I don't use with my taxes

in addition to the transit system I do use. But unlike the Hummer driver, I have to pay additional user fees for my mode of commuting. If I have to pay extra for the luxury of not polluting the air on my way to work, then it shouldn't be an undue burden for the Hummer driver to pay to do the opposite.

Whether the user fee is fixed or a floating congestion price is irrelevant. America has enough pavement already. In areas where there is sufficient population density that traffic congestion is an issue, then the conditions exist for a public transit system to be put in place. Oil is a finite resource. Much of it has to be imported from politically unstable areas. The usage of such oil has devastating environmental effects. It's completely insane that anybody would suggest that building more roads is the proper way to address transportation issues.

[MoseyWalker]

26. maybe our "private" parts

Seems the far right would introduce legislation sooner or later attempting to ensure that private parts remain private at all times!

[ourbluenation]

31. schools....vouchers anyone? n/t