Cheaper By the Dozen

Several years ago Chicago’s municipal parking enforcement business was turned over to a private interest group operating from one of the Arab Emirate States. At that time a quarter paid for the customary fifteen minutes of metered parking. Today you’d need four of them. A family driving to town for a little fun is going to need a lot of quarters.

There are two things wrong with this picture. One is that the city’s streets were built with and are maintained by money from taxpayers who assumed that they were creating something for their city. Any fees collected for its use would be assessed and collected under the auspices of their elected government officials, not by corporate executives whose only obligation, after taking their cut, is to shareholders from all over the world.  I’m guessing that collecting fines from scofflaws is still the city’s job. This sort of thing is not limited to city streets. Many toll booths on bridges and highways around the nation are privately run.

The other thing wrong is that this practice of literally selling government goes well beyond our infrastructure. Of greater concern is the incessant pressure from the newly emboldened right to privatize areas that should be exclusively publicly operated. State penal systems, such as Arizona’s have been sold to private interests, whose bottom line benefits directly from increased volume of incarcerations from our judicial system. It’s not hard to figure that one out.

Public education, law enforcement and, most particularly national “defense” are among areas that should be verboten to any but government operation. How many people know that we had more guns for hire in Iraq from Blackwater and other mercenaries than we had troops? I wonder if any of them are now proud owners of state of the arts weaponry financed by taxpayers.

The sale of the city’s parking meters in Chicago may have been engineered by Mayor Richard Daley, a Democrat, who obviously was not planning to run for reelection. Nevertheless there’s no question that as a group, Republicans are leaders in the fight to privatize publicly owned facilities and operations.

An opinionated person might conclude that they have been knowingly and intentionally working to make this country fail financially during Obama’s presidency. The coming showdown on the debt limit may tell us something about this. The most obvious motive is to increase the chance of electing a Republican president next year. What I’ve yet to hear mentioned is that the worse the financial conditions of the federal, state and local governments the more is for sale and, according to the old supply and demand formula, at a lower price. 

The same opinionated person might also conclude that that they are figuratively guilty of looting, something my father told me was punishable by death in Biblical times. But I say hold the guillotine. Perp walks will suffice.