Spanish firm gets contract to build Texas toll road

Apparently, the boys and girls in Washington believe we don't have any American companies who can do the work, so they've agreed to loan a Spanish company the money they will need in order to finance the project.

"Officials with the Spanish toll road operator Cintra have announced that the company has secured $430 million in loans from the U.S. government to build and operate two segments of a toll road in central Texas."

Cintra officials announced the company’s financial plan for the $1.36 billion Highway 130 segments on Monday, March 10.

OOIDA Senior Government Affairs Representative Mike Joyce told Land Line that the Association does raise red flags when federal dollars are used to subsidize private investors."

http://www.landlinemag.com/todays_news/Daily/2008/Mar08/031008/031308-04.htm

Duh? I guess so! At a time when our economy is grinding to a halt, why outsource this plum contract to a foreign firm?

Oh, yeah, sorry. I forgot. This is Texas where backroom deals are as numerous as oilwells and steers.

The lease the Spanish company is getting pretty much gives them total control of the highway for the next 50 years.

I'm sure Cintra will say American workers will get the many jobs that will open up because of the project. There's even a clause in the lease that mentions on the job training through the Texas Highway Heavy Branch of Assoc. General Contractors.

A letter boasting about about the Texas on job training program is included in the Cintra lease package. It says, "The 235 members of the Branch now empl0y approximately 22,000 workmen of whom some 70% are minority groups, about evenly divded amiong Negroes and Mexican-Americans."

Negroes? What are we back in the dark ages? Could there possibly be a few of the dreaded "illegals" in the mix? It sure would help the profits.

This is just one more example of the way our government is making deals with foreign companies, even while homeowners here are losing their houses, while families are struggling just to put food on the table.

Surely SOME American company is capable of building a toll road.

In many cases, outsourcing just plain stinks. It's an insult to American taxpayers to use their money to pay for loans to foreign companies who are taking projects away from American construction companies.