Public-Private Partnerships: Legalized Ponzi Schemes?

Here's what Paul K. Ogden has to say on his blog:

Public-private partnerships work like this: Government agrees to subsidize some big downtown project that the private sector found unprofitable to do on its own. The project is built. Years later the private company running the project is, as predicted, losing money and demands larger taxpayer subsidies or it will take a walk. The Government, having already gone out on the limb investing millions in taxpayer money on the project doesn't want to lose its original investment so it agrees to "invest" millions more in the public-private partnership. Sound familiar? It's going on all over downtown Indianapolis.

This Indianapolis Observer remembers all the hype -- these investments would pay off in the long run, yadda yadda. Well, they haven't. We do have a much more bustling downtown than we did in the 1970s, but...why the continued subsidies?