(Last week, I invited people who have been commenting on Opening Arguments to participate in a little reverse blogging. E-mail me something, I offered, and I'll consider putting it up, then I can comment on your post for a change. Mike Sylvester is the first one to take me up on it. Following is his post.)
Major Moves is an interesting bill that has drawn a lot of partisan politics. I have not had time to read the complete bill, nor have I had the time to “crunch the numbers” and make an intelligent decision about the entire proposal.
Republicans and Democrats are tossing around statistics that 100% contradict each other. I can tell you one thing for sure; no taxpayer should even consider believing the statistics that either side is putting out.
There is one statistic that I have decided to investigate. INDOT, Mitch Daniels and the Republicans are claiming that the toll-road lease will create 130,000 jobs. That is a bald-faced lie that anyone with a calculator can discount in about 30 seconds. Do they think we are stupid? If claims like this go unchallenged; we need to retrain all Hoosiers in mathematics.
Please get out a calculator, and let's “crunch the numbers!”
Let's assume that the Indiana government gets $3.85 billion for the 75-year lease, and that all of this money is immediately spent to create jobs.
Next let's assume that 100% of the $3.85 billion will immediately go to pay construction workers.
If you divide $3.85 billion by 130,000 workers, then you get $29,615 dollars per construction worker. This would pay 130,000 construction workers for about five months (Not 75 years). This is assuming that there is no government waste, no fraud, no theft, no corporate profits, no managers, no supervisors and no accountantsand that none of the money is siphoned off by the government or politicians, no lawyers are involved, etc. This does not leave room to purchase any construction materials. Using this scenario, the money would all be spent in about five months.
Republicans should be embarrassed to be quoting these false statistics. Heck, if these construction projects really create 130,000 jobs, let's look at the effect it would have on Indiana's unemployment rate for about five months. According to the Department of Labor Indiana had 153,900 unemployed workers and an unemployment rate of 4.7% in January of this year. If 130,000 construction jobs were created and filled by Hoosiers. our unemployment rate would immediately drop to .7%. Who thinks that will happen?
If you believe that Major Moves will create 130,000 new jobs, please contact me immediately. I have some land that I own in Iraq that you can buy cheap. This land will make you a millionaire in just a few months. It is a great long term investment and there is absolutely no risk to you. Please shoot me an email at Mike.Sylvester@Verizon.net.
Mike Sylvester
Chairman of the Libertarian Party of
Allen
County
Comments
I don
Not to mention that the State Constitution has something to say about how this money must be spent.
Citizens had a press conference attended by the state house press corps, but our legal document got a shut out:
Our Constitution is our forefathers sending us the message, "If it sounds too good to be true, if it sounds like Pie in the Sky, it is. In Fact Quoting one who wrote it:
At the 1850 convention, Daniel Read:
that government should not in its own capacity, nor by a partnership with individuals, become an agent in business operations, except so far as required for the mere purposes of government." Whenever the state becomes "entangled in any such operations, it...is sure, sooner or later, to be cheated, plundered, victimized."
This was in reaction to 20 years of transportation proponents with lies these that today sound quite familiar: "our state needs nothing but outlets, by means of canals and rail roads, to make her a populous, wealthy, and influential member of the confederacy." quoting the Indiana Journal, Aug. 28, 1835.
Forward this legal document widely.
See our legal memorandum: Major Moves is Unconstitutional: http://www.i69tour.org/MMlegality.html
Pay off the state's debt...? In fact that is what The Reason Foundation said too was the best use for the Indiana Toll Road Lease money. Daniels and the business supporters of Major Moves promoted the Reason document heavilly, but skimmed over this detail favoring to waste it on perhaps the lowest return on investment expenses possible. http://www.i69tour.org/reason_wrong.html
Lastly, in the list of things put in the mix of ways this money will be blown, don't forget about the cost of the material, land and fuel to build these projects. The road system is virtually done. We can now get everyplace in this country... but the road industry has this one last burst of funding expansionism. Toll Tax small segments of the population for three or four generations out. Those not born yet can't lobby their legislators.
My father Harold Towsley, a retired professional engineer, is staunchly against Major Moves and would like to see the scheme rejected.
He encourages every Hoosier to take a fresh look at a road map of Indiana east to west and north to south. You will see, he says, roads -- roads connecting every corner of the state from border to border in every direction. He says we aren't already called the Crossroads of America for nothing.
He concludes that we already have our fill of red flags, orange cones, lowered speed limits, torturous detours and creeping bottlenecks three seasons out of four.
He observes that many Hoosiers don't seem to realize the coming years of unprecedented delays and disruptions they will be subjected to as $3+ billion of additional road projects are piled on top of the annual bumper crop of highway maintenance projects we already put up with.
He points out that our public servants have bilked us on the toll road before, as follows:
He recalls that when the Indiana toll road project was first sold to disinclined Hoosiers, state government solemnly guaranteed that Hoosiers need have no fear, because tolls would ONLY be collected UNTIL the highway construction cost was recouped, after which Indiana I-80/90 would be a freeway. That's right, a freeway for the people that paid if off.
Thank goodness we have folks with long memories to remind us when necessary that trust must be earned, talk is cheap, political promises are Monopoly money, and $4 billion can buy you a lot of torn-up roads, and profit-driven toll prices too, if you let it.
I honestly don't know whether the jobs' claim is accurate, but I know your estimate is not accurate. If the state spends $3.4 billion on federally-qualified transportation projects, it will qualify for federal matching dollars--that could amount to as much as a 80-20 federal-state match. In other words, for every $20 the state spends, there is an $80 match from the federal government. Try doing the math on those numbers and you get a much higher number of jobs. That could be as much as $17 billion in new transportation spending over the next 10 years. You're going to see several huge public transporation projects undertaken during the same period, including I-69, the Heartland Highway, and the Indianapolis to South Bend expressway--not to mention two new bridges over the Ohio.
If then Federal government were to match the money 4 to 1 then I would say it would create four times as many jobs.
Mike Sylvester
And let's not forget that whenever we hear ANY politician claim they have a "comprehensive plan"...it REALLY means they have NO idea what to do, but it WILL cost the taxpayers...got it?
Bob G.
Pennsylvania is actively courting the Australians in order to build a toll road
http://www.heraldstandard.com/site/printerFriendly.cfm?brd=2280&dept_id=480247&newsid=16287293
03/12/2006
Commission looks to Australian company for support
By Amy Zalar , Herald-Standard
The CEO of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission said a recent meeting between turnpike officials and an Australian-based investment firm to see if the Australian company is interested in bankrolling the Mon/Fayette Expressway and Southern Beltway is "one of many, many options" the PTC is examining.
The Macquarie Group of Sydney has spoken with turnpike officials about a long-term lease of the 65-mile expressway, parts of which are still under construction between Interstate 68 in Morgantown, W.Va. and Pittsburgh.
Joseph G. Brimmeier, CEO of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, said what the PTC is doing is "one of many, many options we are looking at regarding portions of the Mon/Fayette Expressway."
Brimmeier said with gas tax funds drying up, the turnpike commission has to look at alternative ways to fund the project and public/private partnerships are one of many options. He said the Macquarie Group has built and purchased other roads throughout this country, as well as in Germany and Spain.
According to the Web site for the Macquarie Group, the firm has done the following two recent toll road transactions: The Macquarie Group Financial advisor to the Macquarie Infrastructure Group/Cintra consortium, for the $1.83 billion purchase of the 99-year lease to operate and manage the Chicago Skyway toll road, the first privatization of an existing toll road in the United States; and financial advisor to the Macquarie Infrastructure Group for the $635 million financing and acquisition of the 35 year lease to operate and manage the SR-125 South toll road in San Diego.
Brimmeier said at this point it is too soon to tell if the group would be willing to fund the Pittsburgh section or others, such at the Uniontown-to-Brownsville section. He estimated an additional $2.5 billion is needed to complete the highway.
"We're just trying to figure out how to build the road for people who will use the road," Brimmeier said.