How can anyone fail to see through PFI?

[ciphergoth]

How can anyone think using private money to build hospitals and schools is a good idea? As far as I can see the reasons not to are screamingly obvious and pretty irrefutable - am i missing something?

If it's private, it's an investment. If it's an investment, they'll give money now in return for more money later. If they want more money later, it'll have to come from the taxpayer. Ergo, the total cost to the taxpayer in the long term is greater with PFI.

Is this not the bleeding obvious?

Comments

Municipal Bonds

[bootpunk.livejournal.com]

Very big in the US, are muni bonds. Which is, of course, exactly the way the tube should be financed, as it is a local benefit. New hospitals and schools too, could be financed locally. But the Treasury hates the idea of muni bonds, and will never agree to them unless forced at gunpoint by some radical Chancellor.

The Economist put forward another interesting point. A new tube line could be partly off-set by wind-fall taxes for the areas it affects. This was psrtly the case for the Docklands line extension, but the amount contributed - and only by the Docklands Corp - was a pittance cf the cost of the extension. Business and private property all along the route should also have been charged wind-fall taxes, as they all had a nice, big benefit after it opened. Making the direct beneficiaries contribute more would hardly be politically unpopular either.