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May 25, 2012

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New Wisconsin Recall Poll: Reason-Rupe Finds Broad Support for Pension, Health Care Reforms

Emily Ekins

The Reason-Rupe poll finds voters overwhelmingly support many of the key changes Gov. Walker and the legislature implemented on public sector pensions and health care last year. Reason-Rupe finds 72 percent favor the change requiring public sector workers to increase their pension contributions from less than 1 percent to 6 percent of their salaries. And 71 percent favor making government employees pay 12 percent of their own health care premiums instead of the previous 6 percent. Taxpayers actually wish state lawmakers had cast an even larger net with their reforms. Police and firefighters were exempted from the pension and health care adjustments but 57 percent of taxpayers say they should not have been. The public supports asking government workers to pick up more of the tab for their own benefits because 65 percent say public sector workers receive better pension and health care benefits than private sector workers, 22 percent say benefit levels are about the same, and just 7 percent believe private sector benefits are better than those in the public sector.

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Join Reason On an Alaskan Cruise

Reason's Alaskan cruise will depart from Seattle on August 11, 2012. We'll visit Juneau, Glacier Bay, Sitka, and Ketchikan, Alaska, before visiting Victoria, British Columbia. Join Reason's Nick Gillespie, Matt Welch, Jacob Sullum and Peter Suderman, plus featured guests:

For more information about the Reason cruise, please click here.

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Puerto Rico Building Robust Infrastructure Privatization Program

Puerto Rico advanced public-private partnerships in schools, highways and aviation in 2011

Leonard Gilroy

In two short years, the administration of Governor Luis Fortuño has turned Puerto Rico into a privatization leader among its state peers. To address the territory's chronic deficits and unsustainable debt, the administration has advanced a range of reforms that include major spending reductions, optimization of government operations and the enactment of a new law in 2009 inviting private investors to modernize or develop new infrastructure across a variety of sectors.

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Christie Administration Expanded Privatization Portfolio in New Jersey in 2011

Initiatives advanced in toll collection, road maintenance, racing facilities and more

Leonard Gilroy

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's administration continued to expand its portfolio of privatization initiatives in its second year of office as part of its broader government streamlining and reform agenda.

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Jindal Continued Louisiana Privatization Push in 2011

Initiatives advanced in Medicaid, public employee health care and more

Leonard Gilroy

In the last year of his first term in office, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal continued to advance privatization as a central component of his broad government reform agenda. And with his re- election to a second term in November 2011, privatization is likely to continue to play a major role in the Pelican State's streamlining efforts for the next several years.

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Kasich Administration Advanced Privatization in Ohio in 2011

Initiatives advanced in economic development, asset realignment and more

Leonard Gilroy

A year into his new administration—and as promised during his gubernatorial campaign—Ohio Gov. John Kasich has taken significant steps to advance privatization as a key component of his governing agenda.

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The Senate's Transportation Bill Attacks Public-Private Partnerships

How and why the surface transportation reauthorization bill would deprive states of a much-needed tool for expanding investment in highways and transit

Baruch Feigenbaum

In March 2012, the U.S. Senate approved its MAP-21 surface transportation reauthorization bill. While MAP-21 has a number of parallels with H.R. 7, it also contains several provisions intended to discourage and restrict the use of long-term public private partnerships (PPPs) for transportation infrastructure. This brief describes those provisions and explains how and why they would deprive states of a much-needed tool for expanding investment in highways and transit. 

Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) for infrastructure are long-term contracts between public and private entities for the financing, construction (or reconstruction), operation and maintenance of specific infrastructure facilities. PPPs are used for both highway and transit projects. State departments of transportation, public transit agencies and highway contractors all support PPPs. PPPs are one of the few infrastructure development mechanisms supported by both the Brookings Institution and the Heritage Foundation.

PPPs are a method of financing a project by raising all the needed construction funds up front and paying them off over time from dedicated revenues (such as tolls or a dedicated transportation tax). This enables states and the federal government to overcome the problems created by traditional highway funding mechanisms, which involve paying with cash from cur.rent tax receipts. Such cash funding means that large projects are either (a) deferred for many years until all the funds are saved up, or (b) built in bits and pieces over a long period of time. PPPs deliver needed transportation infrastructure years or even decades sooner than when financed with cash. Over the past two decades, nearly 40 long-term transportation PPPs have been financed in the United States. PPP toll projects are under construction or in operation in a growing number of states, including California, Florida, Indiana, Illinois, Texas and Virginia. 

 

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