What to do when your addicted relative has bankrupted the family

In a recent article in Business Week Online ("Roads to riches") author Emily Thornton describes plans in process to sell or lease major portions of US public infrastructure, especially roads, to private investors. The reason is that the public authorities controlling these public assets are so cash strapped that they need to sell the roads, tunnels, bridges, etc in order to pay off huge debt.

The situation is like that of a family that is ruined financially by a bread winner who won't work, but who keeps raiding the family checking account to pay for booze or drugs or gambling. Eventually, the family has to sell off its belongings in order to stay afloat. George Bush is that addictive bread winner. His tax cuts have squeezed federal programs and offloaded some of that squeeze onto states and municipalities, which now have to find money for programs formerly supported in whole or in part by federal monies. At the same time, Bush has raided America's checkbook for an unjustified, unnecessary, unwinnable and very expensive war.

Like a ruined family, America now has to sell off its roads and bridges to private investors in order to stay afloat. And, like a ruined family, once all the belongings have been sold and the bank has been paid off, the family ends up with nothing. There will be a lot of nothing in many Americans' futures, thanks to the profligacy of the Bush administration.