100% spot on
Posted on 05/18/2014 9:00:08 AM PDT by blam
Problem: one (1) prima donna on Pennsylvania Avenue and 535 Capitol Hill critters, all like Paris Hilton on Rodeo Drive, all with Dad’s platinum card.
What have they done since the last `fiscal crisis’?
They’ve borrowed more money from China and spent it.
The Pacific Northwest cities are wasting massive amounts of transportation funds on bike paths, to the exclusion of expanding lanes for cars and trucks. The libs feel good about themselves when they do this, even though most of them don’t ride bikes. Mass transit and bikes for the little people. For the common good. Unless you are a Party elite.
I seem to recall that in Bush’s first term (early 2000s) the issue of falling bridges, poor roads, etc. came up and the “fix” was to open the spigot from this fund. The previous administrations had been collecting and not spending any money on infrastructure. The fund was reported to be “Overflowing” at the time. I remember signs popping up all over the place touting this spending.
I suspect the truth of the matter is that the “overflowing” money pot was a bunch of IOUs (Treasury Certs.)like in the Social Security “Trust Fund”. Congress had already raided it! Now they don’t have income to cover the IOUs anymore.
I may be off-base here, but some how I doubt it....
100% spot on
The problems with the Federal Highway Trust Fund are:
1. A disproportionately high amount has been diverted to support of public transit (light rail, busses, etc.).
2. The porkers in Congress prefer to fund new projects (new bridges and highways, etc) rather than maintenance and repair. Makes for more ribbon-cutting opportunities.
3. Improved mpg and a stagnant economy have resulted in lower tax collections.
The solution, of course, is to use the fund for what it was originally designed to fund: first, maintenance and repair of the existing plant, then new highway projects as needed. Public transit should be funded separately...to the degree justified.
Which is a solution that will never happen...
There are more than 6,000 bridges and tunnels on the American engineers “in need of critical repair” list and (1) the majority of them are in handful of states and (2) the majority of them are not mission critical to intra-state or interstate commerce, and so of what “national priority” ate most of them? None. Then what is the real problem? The real problem is the highway trust fund is used as a national slush fund that tries to allow states to NOT adopt highway and infrastructure priorities.
Canada is willing to pay the full cost of building a new bridge across the Detroit river to east the trade bottleneck. (Its the second busiest freight crossing on the continent) We still need to pay $250 million for buying and razing buildings, customs plaza, and of ramps etc. Unfortunately Obama refuses to release the money without $100 million being given to union pension funds.
again, the real issue is not vital and necessary infrastructure spending but priorities
for Congress the only priority is “what’s in it for my state politicians and for my buying votes back home” and for the state politicians the only priority is in “what’s in it for me” which includes “I need to tell the folks back home I’m not raising their state taxes I’m getting their federal reps to bring free gifts back from uncle sam”
the end result?? power shifts to washington d.c. and that is all that is accomplished
I’m usually opposed to spending on things like new bridges but this is a case with an existing need unlike the cargo cult thinking that builds high speed rail.
Unfortunately our governor is one of those cargo cult thinkers who can’t let go of his dream to fund what we actually need.
So administrators and contract bosses sucked up all of the dough again, and many foreign nationals will cease receiving their temporary ghetto pay without benefits.
The real solution is to abolish pork (federal funding to state and local governments). That would make politics a whole lot quieter and more civil besides being more affordable.
Oh my gosh, we’re all going to die!
At Obama’s discretion, will DOT put up barricades to keep public off roads like Parks Service kept veterans away from Vietnam & WWII Memorials?
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