Billion Dollars Deal or No Deal

The judge has weighed in with his opinion on the selling or leasing of the Indiana Toll Road. The 83 page opinion, can be found here

Judge Scopelitis suggest that the long term transfer of the Road to the Concessionaire is for rent and not a transfer of ownership of the Toll Road. From my understanding of the reading of the opinion, is the Toll Road does not belong to the State but to Indiana Finance Authority. And that IFA is just a mere instrumentality of the State.

Mere instrumentality of the State, what does that mean, that it is not an arm attached to the state, acting under the direction of the state, but a separate entity??? So, why does the state have a moral obligation to back the obligation of the mere instrumentality, if it stands alone.

Wait a minute, why don't it hire it's own policing agents to secure the toll road and not the Indiana State Police in its operation of the Cintra-Macquarie or Macqurie-Cintra consortium Indiana Toll Road??? The issue of the distribution of the funds in various accounts sounds as complicated as the leasing being treated as a sale for specific tax purposes. The opinion offered some insights but was not determinative on the issue. It is not relevant as to whether or not the lease is a good deal, according to the Judge.

To me, it seems that the long term leasing appears to be a sale, but in order to skirt the issue the House bill 1008 allowed for a lease. I don't know who elected these folks, but instead of selling houses to foreign investors, they are cutting deals with them. Indiana is continuing a tradition of not following the government by the people, for the people but a government by political leaders, for business investors and damn the people who elected them in establishing a private-public agreement that lack oversight and accountability to the taxpayers.