Foreign Companies Buy U.S. Roads, Bridges

[cal04]

Roads and bridges built by U.S. taxpayers are starting to be sold off, and so far foreign-owned companies are doing the buying.

On a single day in June, an Australian-Spanish partnership paid $3.8 billion to lease the Indiana Toll Road. An Australian company bought a 99-year lease on Virginia's Pocahontas Parkway, and Texas officials decided to let a Spanish-American partnership build and run a toll road from Austin to Seguin for 50 years.

Few people know that the tolls from the U.S. side of the tunnel between Detroit and Windsor, Canada, go to a subsidiary of an Australian company _ which also owns a bridge in Alabama.

Some experts welcome the trend. Robert Poole, transportation director for the conservative think tank Reason Foundation, said private investors can raise more money than politicians to build new roads because these kind of owners are willing to raise tolls.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060715/ap_on_re_us/highways_for_sale_1

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. Once the U.S. is more than 50% owned by foreign interests.... will

those interests be able to exert influence over when and whom our war machine goes after next? Curious.

[jean]

2. This is a good article to email far and wide. People have no idea this

is happening.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. Controlling our own bridges and roads is one of those jobs

that Americans won't do.