Portside

In effect, the Chinese government decides what work it wants done, draws on its own national credit card, pays Chinese workers to do it, and repays the loans with the proceeds.The US government could do that too, without raising taxes, slashing services, cutting pensions, or privatizing industries.

Public-private partnerships may indeed provide the dollars that fearful politicians are unable to pry from the pockets of their tax-averse constituents. But P3s, as they are known in the infrastructure sector, are more complex than they appear. The idea that P3s allow infrastructure to be built for free is economic snake oil, P3s do not end up saving taxpayers money, especially when policymakers obscure the true costs and the risks.

The 18.6 million dollar repair contract for the 32-bus fleet, which was bid in 2013, was the only bid the T received and came in nearly 18 percent below estimate.

Trump's choice for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, is perhaps the most extreme of Trump's cabinet nominees. She has spent her entire adult life - and her family's considerable wealth - mounting campaigns to transfer public dollars away from public schools and into private and religious schools.

Republican lawmakers have quietly laid the foundation for the bargain basement transfer of Americans’ birthright, 640 million acres of national land, to private hands, notably oil, mining, and development interests. In a single line of changes to the rules for the House of Representatives, Republicans have stealthily eased the path to disposing of federal property, even if doing so loses money for the government and provides no demonstrable compensation to U.S. citizens.

While it is doubtful that US President-elect Donald Trump ever read George Orwell's 1984, Trump's cabinet choices appear to come right out of the doublethink that ruled Orwell's dystopian society. In Orwell's book, the Ministry of Plenty rationed essentials while the Ministry of Truth manufactured falsehoods. Trump's choice for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, is perhaps the most extreme of Trump's cabinet nominees.

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There are nearly 29,000 DOD contractors in Afghanistan.