If you were to own a business that nearly seven million people use daily in order to make a living, you would think you had a cash cow. So why has the MTA continually failed at even balancing their budgets? With a shortfall this year of $383 million, the MTA has become an albatross around New York’s neck. We must privatize the MTA.
A free market approach would be to make the government take a hands-off approach by allowing companies to formulate their own bus lines and have multiple train companies on the same line. The possibilities are endless, and the amount of companies who can see the profit motives could make the trains and buses effective, affordable, and run on time. Their accountability would be held by the customer rather then by bureaucrats.
This argument is not one of ideology but of common sense; look at other business that compete and provide better affordable service then the government can. Take for example the U.S. Postal Service, which performs ineffectively with high costs in comparison to the privately owned FEDEX.
With MTA employees receiving outrageous benefits, pensions, and incentives, it has become impossible for this current system to continue. Get on the track of financial sanity, and privatize the MTA!
Ryan James Girdusky
Vice President of the Queens County Young Republicans
