According to this, the author would happily see gasoline prices at $5 per gallon in order to make the highways safe. But, you and I know that more money going into the federal treasury is nothing but another incentive to hire more bureaucrats or give the ones already entrenched bigger bonuses. Read more @ http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/opinion/16wed1.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0
What we need is to privatize the highway system. Sell them off and use the money to service the debt.
Over time, funding highways via gasoline taxes will prove more regressive as wealthier persons switch to vehicles that use less or no gasoline. A similar problem exists for mileage taxes and the distance differences between poor people and their place of employment compared to wealthier. Y'can't blame poor people for the lack of affordable housing nearer their jobs. One manner I would favor "special funding" highways would be via a vehicle weight tax at the time of annual State registration. We know heavier vehicles are "harder on the highway" than lighter vehicle. Watch out industrial trucks And no special commercial vehicle reduction. Highways serve society, not just drivers. It really is time to divert funding to Federal / State / Local governments and not "special funding". Moi No Tolls either. Tolls are Regressive ! r > g so subtle you barely notice the economic blood loss No
Privatizing the highway system would only further enrich the would be owners of this new system and drive costs for the everyday commuter up I'm afraid.
The Federal Highways Trust fund didn't get diverted from highway funding. What makes you think this would be different? - - - Updated - - - Which would create more debt afterwards, and limit economic growth and destroy jobs.
Socialism is clearly a failure. Privatizing our socialist highways would lead to more economic growth and jobs, not less. And the act of paying off debt does not, in and of itself, create more debt, so selling off the highways would not create more debt. Only more reckless vote buying, err, spending would create more debt.
Roadways and bridges in this southern state are in atrocious condition and many are nearly impassable. And numerous bridges are near collapse. An increased state gasoline tax might be justifiable if the state would actually use the additional revenue to improve roads. However, 86% of gasoline taxes are diverted to fund excessive social programs and to hire more public school "administrators" (not teachers). Same way with the state's "education lottery." Except for paying winners, almost all the proceeds are used to hire more bloated-salary administrators and to construct more skyscrapers in the state capital for these bureaucrats to lounge around in all day long.
Whut? Nope. There's absolutely no economic study you can point to that's based in economics that can show that. Private companies will only build short roads to get goods to ports (never mind the fact that ports need government to maintain the dredging of channels and have Coast Guard system to make information available for changing conditions), and wouldn't build anything approaching intrastate or interstate systems. Much like government provided the lands and money for rail companies to build from east to west, the government did the same for local, state and. Interstate roads, and saw high economic growth. Not to mention that costs will rise to use privatized roads, as has been seen already. http://www.uspirg.org/sites/pirg/files/reports/Road-Privatization.pdf And (*)(*)(*)(*)tier service for maintenance of the roads than even now, with roads becoming potentially more dangerous, as the profit motive sees less spent on repairs and upgrades, with no means of public pressure through elections to keep them in line. once the economic growth is stymied by your ideas, the public debt rises. Just like it did during the Bush/GOP housing bubble and recession. When economic growth falls off, less revenues are generated. Less revenues when you have a budget means higher deficits. This is simple math and common sense, with some Econ 101 thrown in. You're proposing a one time sell off, that will not pay the debt off, or even down very much, then kicking the economy in the balls. - - - Updated - - - Do you have a link showing gas taxes were diverted to social spending? Especially in a Southern state, it seems pretty far fetched.
Umm, all of history has shown that socialism doesn't work. Where have you been? It's funny you bring up railroads when all the government subsidized railroads were failing (because they were paid by the mile and built shoddy tracks that went to every political district) the Great Northern railroad, which was privately funded, was still afloat. Private roads would be safer, cheaper and more efficient. Traffic jams would be a thing of the past and boondoggles like the Big Dig would never happen. Your assertion that private companies would only build short roads to ports has already been proven wrong by history. Private road companies built thousands of miles of roads in the early 1800s. http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/How_Capitalism_Saved_America Oh goodness me, you think elections keep the State in line? That's quite a naive thing to say. What keeps organizations in line is being able to walk away and not give them your money. The State can take your money whether you like the service or not. Businesses have to serve your needs or else they don't get paid. That's why government is horrible at everything it does (except killing people) and private business excels so well.
If you want to be egalitarian on funding tax the vehicles based on a percentage of the vehicles value for highway and road funds which could be for example 20% of the vehicles value new or used (of the selling not sale or discounted prices) plus the existing gas taxes diverting more to mass transit. So a $20,000 car would cost $24,000.
Good luck with that. Automakers will block any effort to do anything that could cost them sales of new vehicles.
Yes. Maintaining bridges and highways was something that "Old America" did. "New America" is incapable of doing anything but sitting on it's dead ass and whining.
that is ridiculous, better have a huge jar of change with you OR a easypass (which I am sure the government would like you to use for tracking purposes)
no doubt, the gas tax has not kept up with inflation, it has to increase I do not agree with republicans or democrats on their other solutions repubs = privatize all roads dems = tax by the mile driven raising the gas tax a few cents is the fairest and easiest way to do it .
Yeah, because if you ride a bus all you see is people holding jars of change because that's the only way it could possibly work.
Maybe we should look into better methods of maintenance which would last longer. Maybe something like this: http://www.linex.com/pages/2010/commercial_industrial/ Save money by not having to refinish a road every couple years.
we can always look for a better way to do it, but that usually costs more upfront for testing, ect...
Roads should be paid for by those using the service. Electronic tolls are the best way of doing this. The road system should be privatized where ever possible.
The gas tax has kept up just fine.............. This is just another unintended consequence of dictating MPG requirements on cars........ The more fuel efficient.........the less they take in for highways........... If everyone went electric...........how would they pay for roads?
Gas/Diesel fuel tax revenues are $40 billion per year. Each 1 cent increase in the gas/diesel excise tax is about $2 billion in revenue. The federal government funds maybe 50% of roads/bridges while state and local funds another 50%. Guesstimates are $3-$3.5 trillion needed in road/bridge projects. If we assumed $3 trillion would be spent over 10 years, this is $300 billion per year. Currently the fuel tax is funding (40/300) 13% of the $300 billion needed. The fuel tax needs to increase $1.30/gallon for 10 years to pay our way. Obviously we are not going to pay our way! If we were to spend heavy on much needed infrastructure, nearly all of it will be debt money. IMO politicians and Americans won't allow the fuel tax to increase even $.10/gallon...well maybe over 5 years. Bottom line, just as with public education, or public transportation, even SS and Medicare, we demand these things but we're unwilling to fund these things...more and more debt. Now add infrastructure spending which will be more debt. We simply are incapable of raising the capital in order to grow this nation... - - - Updated - - - The federal gas tax has not increased in 20 years...
In my area they just spent $$$$ widening 101 from 2 to 3 lanes in a ~10 mile stretch. For whatever reason, the freeway under each overpass is concrete while the remainder is asphalt. The asphalt is baby-ass smooth and the concrete is bumpy. Plus the concrete is an inch lower than the asphalt so there are two bumps at each concrete patch. This is just the obvious that I have noticed and wondered about so surely there are more issues like this. IMO we build crap, and design crap. It won't take long with 90-100 degree days for each of these areas to degrade and I'll bet work will be needed at every overpass in the near future. How many decades have we been building roads? Lastly, the costs to build/repair roads is astronomical today...
That was my point. Why just give them more money to (*)(*)(*)(*) away by raising taxes? They need to make better use of the money they already have.
Untrue. Communism never worked. But a mixture of social safety net spending, public spending on infrastructure and education, regulation of the private sector that promotes growth while keeping markets relatively free of fraud, has seemed to work best. The US saw its peak in prosperity in the late 1960s, and early 1970s from that approach. Here in reality. Mises. LOL. PRivatization has rarely worked in any government service turned over to private companies. It's unlikely that roads would be any different. Well, elections have generally worked better over the long haul. With the oligopolies that have become the norm, and leaving fewer choices for products, information, banking, etc, larger companies are becoming more deaf to society, even if they are the customers. We need to see a more informed electorate, that is also an activist base. Unfortunately, the MSM dumbs too many down by spouting conservative and centrist narratives, without giving the full picture.
The pickle that we are in is that humans are very limited and IMO most of us have reached the Peter Principle...we simply do not possess the knowledge and skills to do better. And many of us refuse to force change because it might intrude on our own comfort zones. We can guess the federal government is 75% efficient...maximum! This means we're pissing away approximately $1 trillion every year...lots of inefficiencies, lots of personal greed, and most of it is politically rooted, and good luck getting those involved to change this...
