>The reason you don't want to do that is because the private enterprise wants to maximize its profits. There is nothing wrong with that but in order to do so they will cut corners where ever possible and do the absolute minimum for upkeep.

Government does this and when they do it it's much, much harder to hold them accountable. Look at the Big Dig or anything the MTA touches.

When a private company acts like this and the public notices there's at least the risk that some politicians will latch on to the issue (no politician ever lost public support by being tough on a company that was mistreating the public). When government is the wrongdoer it's needs to get incredibly bad before the other parts of government hold them accountable.