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Letter: Turnpike agency divorced from financial reality

Editor:

Your Sept. 18 article about the Pennsylvania Turnpike (“Highway robbery”) is disturbing. The article states that more than 50% of the commission’s total revenue goes to pay “borrowing costs,” which doesn’t even include the repayment of the debts themselves. Fifty percent? What?

Can you imagine any private citizen requesting a home mortgage or home equity loan if the interest alone would be 50% of their total income? They’d be laughed out of the bank.

For those who don’t know, the rule of thumb for home mortgages is that the total housing cost, defined as interest, taxes, and repayment of principal, should not exceed 28% of the homeowners total income.

Just like many other quasi-governmental agencies, commissions and authorities, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission is, by design, completely divorced from financial reality.

Pennsylvania Act 229 of 1953 states that when the debts of the PTC have all been paid, the turnpike will become a toll-free road owned and maintained by the state, and the commission dissolved. Act 229 was passed 68 years ago, yet the commission’s debt is larger than ever.

Read the history of the PTC. It looks like a shell game designed by the state Legislature to facilitate corruption and political cronyism.

William H. Rissmiller
Exeter Township


Source: Berkshire mont

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