Sources and Sinks

[Steve Schear]

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