Media Coverage of the Turnpike Family Tree

Here is a roundup of news coverage of our Turnpike Family Treeand video:

• Mark Scolforo has the AP Story, with a retort from Joe Brimmeier:

Joe Brimmeier, the turnpike commission’s chief executive, is featured at the top of the Commonwealth Foundation’s “family tree” poster of turnpike figures. Brimmeier said the turnpike commission’s “superior credit rating” shows that it is well run.

• Tracie Mauriello has an article in the Post-Gazette.
• Toll Road News coverage of the video, and other Turnpike related issues.
• Charles Thompson writes in the Patriot-News.
• The editors of the Centre Daily Times criticize the turnpike lease but admit our video makes a “compelling argument” against charging tolls on the Keystone Shortway”.

We have also gotten some negative feedback, including one semi-anonymous message, essentially saying that this corruption doesn’t matter – we still shouldn’t allow anyone to make “a profit” on the Turnpike, but we should keep it in “public control.”

Nathan Benefield's response:

Do you believe the government should take over all farms, or should we continue to let farmers profit off our need to eat? Should government take over the trucking industry, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and so forth, since all those people are “profiting” off their sales to us. Of course the private company plans to turn a profit, but there is nothing evil about the free market.

What is naïve is thinking that a government agency like the Turnpike Commission will ever act in the public interest, or will ever be efficiently run.

Our efforts to expose waste and corruption goes to show that the Turnpike is “not owned and controlled by the people of Pennsylvania,” but it is controlled by a group of self-interested politicians and political appointees who “profit” from tolls.