Push to privatize turnpike reflects shift in thinking

Post-Gazette article on a potential turnpike lease. Geoff Segal of the Reason Foundation and adjunct scholar with Commonwealth Foundation (incorrectly identified with Reason magazine) scoffs at the fear of foreign investors:

Reason Foundation's magazine, a champion of libertarian causes that seeks to reduce the government's role in our lives, says there's nothing to fear about privatization -- our phone lines, electric utilities and gas pipelines are just as vital to the U.S. infrastructure as is the highway system, yet no one minds that these are owned by the private sector.

"I almost have to laugh," said Geoffrey Segal, of Reason magazine. "Elected officials fight each other over landing a Toyota or Honda facility in their back yard." And the same officials complain when American companies want to outsource to India.

Now, when foreign companies want to invest here, they complain about that, too, even though there's no chance of shifting these investments overseas. "These are hard assets," he said. "You can't exactly pick it up and move it."