Source at Yahoo News
It appears that the Bush Administration is no longer alone in their attempts to get people to accept (shady) foreign deals; Indiana's governor, Mitch Daniels, is also having no luck.
The deal seems simple: An overseas consortium has offered Indiana $3.85 billion to take up all maintenance, operations and revenue on the money-losing Indiana East-West Toll Road for 75 years.
Yes, that's right--Governor Daniels has nurtured a deal that would give a foreign company control over the I/80-I/90 Indiana Toll Road, but rest easily, folks...it's not the UAE this time; it's an Australian-Spanish company who already owns major roads around the world.
The concept, emerging as a trendy way for states to pay for road construction, has triggered staunch resistance in a state known for its rock-ribbed conservatism and aversion to change.
Hoosiers aren't excited to know that an overseas group would own something they consider to be owned only by the state of Indiana.
Others view the concept through the lens of recent job cuts in manufacturing, expressing a distrust toward overseas ownership.
"I want to keep what is Indiana's Indiana's," said Connie Greenamyer, 58, a hospice worker, at a recent standing-room-only forum about the governor's plan held in rural Angola, less than 10 miles from the toll road. "This whole state would be divided by foreign countries."
Having been a former Hoosier myself, I'm actually surprised to see that Governor Daniels would attempt this kind of deal in a state where 80% of the population is glaringly bigoted.
However, the following comes as no surprise:
Daniels, who was elected in 2004 after serving as federal budget director for
President Bush, has anchored the privatization push.
Are you shocked? That's what I thought.
At the Angola meeting, the governor said it would be a "tragic mistake" for the state to reject such overseas ventures. "We would be a much poorer state than we are today. We would be a dust bowl," he said.
Indiana...poor? A state where Senator (former Hoosier Governor) Evan Bayh left a billion-dollar suprlus?
Oh, that's right. The one that Frank O'Bannon spent.
House Minority Leader B. Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, who has led the opposition, said Indiana residents are less resistant to the consortium as they are to the leasing idea.
"This isn't about outsourcing our jobs, but outsourcing our profits," Bauer said. "We're changing the toll road into something that's like a bank: Daniels' bank."
Well, the other 20% I left unmentioned above are, indeed, worried about that. Mitch Daniels does have a history of being involved with corruption...and I'm not talking about his "Campaign Against Corruption" either.
For more wonderful material about Mitch Daniels:
Indiana Dem Club
Taking Down Words
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