It's time to reexamine the 1990 federal Immigrant Investor Program that grants special status to foreign investors, whose loans are being sought by the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission. Concerns reach beyond the troubling concept of selling residency or citizenship to wealthy bidders and issues of vetting the sources of such financial windfalls. Concern also focuses on the $20 million in fees that turnpike advisors stand to get from "trade secret and confidential proprietary information," as the commission reported.

Noted financial journalist Jane Bryant Quinn once told me in an interview that if you don't understand a financial instrument, don't buy. So i

Capitalism needn't necessarily mean greed. Is t should be possible for our creative financiers to be more transparent, and for public works projects still to be conceived and implemented in the interest of the public.

Ann Rappoport, Wyncote

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