"The 'public-private' concept works in several ways: either government partners with private business to build and maintain public projects, or government invests in private business to foster the growth of certain industries, supposedly for the public good. Rather than stay out of the marketplace, government officials use their influence and authority to grant special favors to their friends and colleagues in the business world. When government officials and business leaders maintain a close relationship for their own financial benefit, as is often the case with public-private partnerships, it is sometimes called “crony capitalism.”
Crony capitalism is marked by favoritism when it comes to handing out legal permits, government grants, business contracts and special tax breaks. Self-serving friendships or familial ties between businessmen and government officials mean anyone not on the “inside” of these relationships is excluded from the process. Because those relationships result in decision-making based on political and social considerations, however, they often go wrong. Public resources that could be used for infrastructure, education or public safety are diverted into business deals that either go belly up, resulting in the loss of millions of dollars, or into seemingly endless projects that only serve to line the pockets of special interests."
The Silver Spring Transit Center is a public-private partnership. If the builder/contractor, the engineer/designer and the concrete inspector/tester and special quality inspector for the SSTC had been selected in open competition, then would the result have been the same? Would the public be burdened with a severely flawed, over-budget, overdue SSTC that is undergoing millions of dollars in repairs before it opens?
There is much to be learned about government's role in the severely flawed, over-budget, overdue, $120+ million Silver Spring Transit Center. Will it be? Not from government that rejects open competition for cronyism. Not from media that fail to report "in-depth" and to ask government officials "probing questions". Not with a public that is content to sit quietly by while government wastes the public's money.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
Edmund Burke
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