At 01:50 PM 1/3/2004, James A. Donald wrote:
-- On 3 Jan 2004 at 8:09, Michael Kalus wrote:
Yes, the way this usually works is that the government builds the road, then sells it to a private company for some money and then the upkeep is handled by the company.
It is rather seldom that someone builds a road for a business venture.
Used to happen all the time, before governments became so intrusive.
In the U.S. government involvement in road, bridge, railroad and canal building really got its start during the early- to mid-1800s. The Whig Party's platform was called, by Clay, the American System. Today we call it mercantilism. The Whigs pushed their internal improvements agenda (building unneeded and/or grossly overpriced roads, bridges or canals supplied by political contributors) across all the states in the early 1800s. Everywhere it was a disaster bankrupting several. So much so that by 1850 all state constitutions banned internal improvement activities. This was the downfall of the Whigs, but many of its leaders resurfaced in the Republican party whose first presidential candidate was Lincoln. steve