Reason Writers Around Town: Big City Democrats Embrace Privatization
Reason Foundation policy analysts Leonard Gilroy and Harris Kenny have a column in The Wall Street Journal examining the growing trend of local Democrats turning to privatization and public-private partnerships to cope with budget deficits:
We often hear that America's infrastructure is crumbling, but did you know that tens and possibly hundreds of billions of dollars in private infrastructure funds are waiting to be spent? It's money that Chicago Mayor—and Democratic Party powerhouse—Rahm Emanuel has spotted, rightly calling it "a tool here that takes some of the pressure off taxpayers."
In April, the Chicago City Council overwhelmingly approved Mr. Emanuel's $7 billion program to "rebuild Chicago" by constructing two new runways at O'Hare Airport; replacing 900 miles of water pipes and 750 miles of the sewer system; creating special routes for rapid bus transit; modernizing schools, transit stations and city buildings; and building 12 new parks and 20 playgrounds.
To pay for these projects, Mr. Emanuel is turning in part to private firms including Citibank and Citi Infrastructure Investors, Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets Inc., J.P. Morgan Asset Management Infrastructure Investment Group, and union-held Ullico. These firms say they are ready to provide at least $1.7 billion to help build the "new Chicago." (Though the details are not yet set, the likely arrangement would have the private firms putting up capital and then recouping their investments through user fees over a set period of years or decades.)
"This model of private financing for public infrastructure is happening all over the world, but not here in America," said Mr. Emanuel, who served from 2009-10 as President Obama's chief of staff. "I can't get from here to there on the old model—it's broken."
There are decades of major public-private partnership success stories in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain and elsewhere. The Reason Foundation's Annual Privatization Report finds that partly or fully privatized airports—such as Heathrow and Stansted in London, and Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport in Rome, which make money from airlines and especially from passengers in stores, parking lots and the like—handled 48% of European air travel passengers in 2011. That's one reason Chicago is considering privatization plans for Midway Airport (which would ultimately require approval from the Federal Aviation Administration).
Mr. Emanuel's new infrastructure plan is bolstered by the privatization success he's already experienced in Chicago. Last summer he launched a large-scale competitive bidding process in which two companies compete with each other—and head-to-head with city workers—to provide cheaper curbside recycling for Chicagoans.
The competition forced government workers to find better ways to do their jobs, and Chicago reported reducing costs by $2 million in the first six months alone. "The City's crews have worked to close the gap between the private haulers' $2.70 price per cart by reducing their costs by 35 percent from $4.77 to $3.28 per cart," the city government reported in April.