States consider selling off roads, parks

Source: Breitbart

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Minnesota is deep in the hole financially, but the state still owns a premier golf resort, a sprawling amateur sports complex, a big airport, a major zoo and land holdings the size of the Central American country of Belize.

Valuables like these are in for a closer look as 44 states cope with deficits.

Like families pawning the silver to get through a tight spot, states such as Minnesota, New York, Massachusetts and Illinois are thinking of selling or leasing toll roads, parks, lotteries and other assets to raise desperately needed cash.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has hinted that his January budget proposal will include proposals to privatize some of what the state owns or does. The Republican is looking for cash to help close a $5.27 billion deficit without raising taxes.

GOP lawmakers are pushing to privatize the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the state lottery. Both steps require a higher authority—federal legislation in the case of the airport, a voter-approved constitutional amendment for the lottery. But one lawmaker estimated an airport deal could bring in at least $2.5 billion, and the lottery $500 million.

Read more: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D95B6HN00&show_article=1&catnum=1

For the toll roads, no business would lease a toll road for more than they can reasonable expect to earn from the tolls that would be collected over a period of time - repair costs. This means in the long run, the state actually takes in less revenue. It seems like a loan where the "interest" is the forgone income that a state would realize in future years.
It seems like it would be really good for states that could sell off assets that were costing them alot, in hopes that someone else can run it more effeciently and remove the cost burden of the state government.

I singled out toll roads because they are the simpliest to look at because of the limited costs associated with them and the limited ways to reduce the costs. Running an Airport is much more complicated because then a private company might buy it at a price that gives the government more money because the company knows how to run the airport more effeciently that government because of the rewards of controllling costs.

Privatizing a lotteries worries me because that means the government has given a monolopoly to a gambling organization and will use its police officers to enforce this monolopoly.

All of these decision are hard to make and the effeciency of these assets sales must have a wide range of effectiveness on a government's bottom line.

well if the fuckers privatize the lottery then they BETTER just legalize gambling you can't say oh that company can do gambling here but no one else can...