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Follow TURFTaxpayers get shafted in toll deal with Spanish company
By Terri Hall
Examiner.com
September 10, 2009
Is there ANY elected official looking out for the taxpayers anymore? So much for taxpayer protections and oversight from Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott. Even after Abbott held-up several controversial comprehensive development agreements (CDAs, also known as public private partnerships, PPPs) for months declaring them unconstitutional, he recently gave final approval to allow a contract with Spanish toll operator, Cintra, to takeover parts of the LBJ freeway, I-635, in Dallas. The deal will use Dallas Police and Fire Pension System and will charge 75 cents PER MILE to use toll lanes, and even worse, a half a billion in gas taxes will subsidize the deal with Cintra, in a massive DOUBLE TAX scheme.
It's the hefty amount of public money in the deal that caused Abbott to deem it an unconstitutional - to have one Legislature bind a future Legislature with its obligations. Wasn't this a major objection to the Wall Street bailouts? Privatizing profits and socializing losses?
Governor Rick Perry, who has grown fond of criticizing Washington, has taken a page out of their playbook and applied it to Texas toll road. There's a reason these deals are called public private partnerships.
Read the complete Examiner article here.