Outsourcing government functions is a favorite pastime of the
conservative movement. So when Mayor Richard Daley announced last year
that he was entertaining the idea of privatizing Chicago's Midway Airport, right-wing think tanks rejoiced. Reason's Robert Poole and the Mackinac Center's David Bardallis are among the scholars who argue it's long past time American
governments view airports as "potential profit-making enterprises
rather than drains on the public purse." And with a $450 million
deficit and a potential Olympic bid in his sights, Daley must be
excited to get his hands on the $3 billion fee the airport deal may net.
But citizens should be wary of any privatization efforts, as the Tribune's Susan Chandler warned in yesterday's paper:
Because the phenomenon is so new, less has been said
about what happens to consumers when they go from being taxpayers using
public facilities to customers of a for-profit business.
It turns out they pay a lot more.
In her piece, Chandler includes some of those price jumps. Since the Millennium Park Garage was leased to Morgan Stanley
in 2006, the price to park your car for an hour has risen 31 percent.
The cost to drive across the Chicago Skyway is now 50 percent higher
than it was in 2004, when Australian and Spanish investors secured a
99-year lease. By 2017, experts estimate the price will rise to a 100
percent increase from 2004. "The Skyway may look painless now but in 25
years or less, there will be people camped out in City Hall over these
tolls," warned John Foote, senior researcher with Harvard's Kennedy
School of Government. "In 25 years, the tolls won't be acceptable."
Midway's huge up-front payoff is enticing, but it won't solve the
city's underlying financial instability. It might be more worthwhile
for city legislators to pressure for sustainable changes -- like
spending discipline and a more progressive tax code -- rather than gamble on a short-term revenue jolt.
