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It’s Time to Rethink America’s Failing Highways
National Review ^ | June 12, 2018 | Robert Poole

Posted on 06/18/2018 8:13:18 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks

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1 posted on 06/18/2018 8:13:18 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Don’t raise gas taxes if other drivers are going to exempted from paying into the roads.

Electric and hybrid could be assessed annual licensing costs.

Doesn’t make sense to put a highway tax on electricity or else your hone AC usage will also be taxes for toads.


2 posted on 06/18/2018 8:16:57 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (Spygate's clock began in 2015 - what did President Obama know and when did he know it)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

““The last thing we want to do is pass historic tax relief and then undo that, so we are not going to raise gas taxes.”
+++++++++++++
So they will raise taxes last! Again..... and again, and.........
+++++++++++


3 posted on 06/18/2018 8:17:52 AM PDT by gunnyg ("A Constitution changed from Freedom, can never be restored; Liberty, once lost, is lost forever...)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Sending money to Mexifornia is even worse than flushing it down the Obamalet.


4 posted on 06/18/2018 8:18:01 AM PDT by Da Coyote
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

In before somebody starts harping about the National Review being a #NeverTrumper publication.


5 posted on 06/18/2018 8:19:34 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Well, when your gas tax dollars go to subsidizing busses and ferries, what do you expect?


6 posted on 06/18/2018 8:21:15 AM PDT by robroys woman (So you're not confused, I'm using my wife's account.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Fuel taxes were sold to the public last century as “highway-user fees.” And originally, they were used solely to build and maintain highways. Yet that is far from the case today

This is the problem in a nutshell. We have enough money thru abusive high taxes but the money always get diverted to liberal social programs and causes.

7 posted on 06/18/2018 8:23:14 AM PDT by 1Old Pro
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The author of this piece raises some very interesting ideas, even if I may disagree with some of them. This is right up my professional alley, so I'm already adding his book to my reading list.

I would make several quick points here, some of which reflect what he and Milton Friedman have said:

1. It's theoretically possible that U.S. motorists actually pay MORE for their use of the highway system than it really costs to accommodate them. It's not easy to figure this out because the method of financing this infrastructure is more deficient than the amount of money that is collected through taxes and user fees (tolls).

2. Related to the previous point, the best description I've ever heard about the dysfunctional nature of financing our highway system was from someone in a D.C. think tank who likened our fuel tax system to a prepaid all-you-can-eat buffet on a cruise ship. The cruise line operator doesn't care about the quality of the food they serve because the customers have already paid for it up front, and the customers have no financial constraint on how much they eat for the same reason. The end result is that the customer gets crappy food, and eats too much of it anyway. This is a perfect comparison to a congested highway.

3. I find the idea of operating public roads as utilities intriguing -- and it would probably work much better this way for all the reasons the author describes. My one overriding condition would be that the public utilities that operate these roads should first be obligated to buy them from the states and refund the taxpayers whose government used its eminent domain authority to take possession of the rights-of-way in the first place.

8 posted on 06/18/2018 8:30:18 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's.")
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

I don’t think we can afford to maintain our highway infrastructure AND 25 million illegal aliens.


9 posted on 06/18/2018 8:38:34 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer (The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
What happened to 0bama's stimulus package that was supposed to fix things like this, and other shovel ready jobs?
The shovel is all we got.

10 posted on 06/18/2018 8:40:56 AM PDT by BitWielder1 (I'd rather have Unequal Wealth than Equal Poverty.)
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To: BitWielder1

That money was provided to the corrupt apparatchicks and is either long gone or successfully parked off shore


11 posted on 06/18/2018 8:42:38 AM PDT by bert ((K.E. N.P. N.C. +12 ..... Greetings Jacques. The revolution is coming))
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

I wish Mr. Poole would ‘retire’, once and for all. He publishes this garbage EVERY YEAR, and the reaction is always the same - WE DON’T WANT IT! We don’t want the tracking system and behavior control that comes from real-time tolling, and we don’t want the tolling in the first place.

If he loves those foreign systems so much, why doesn’t he just move there and quit making us have to suffer through his pencil-neck view on how to improve the latest form of Communism...or whatever.


12 posted on 06/18/2018 8:47:14 AM PDT by BobL (I drive a pick up truck because it makes me feel like a man)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Gotta have bike lanes.
It’s in the Constitution.
/s


13 posted on 06/18/2018 8:47:27 AM PDT by hadaclueonce ( This time I am Deplorableo)
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To: BitWielder1

A couple of years ago my son and DIL took a scenic road trip from the east coast to AZ and back.

They called it the “Crumbling American Infrastructure” tour.


14 posted on 06/18/2018 8:48:07 AM PDT by Rebelbase ( Tagline disabled.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

The Interstate System works just fine for me, with the exception of the jamming of traffic and highways to get under the south end of Lake Michigan and the long stretch of no crossings of the Rockies between I80 and I90.


15 posted on 06/18/2018 8:49:12 AM PDT by Paladin2
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

How in the H*ll do you expect us to pay for all the illegals coming into our country. Divert the gas tax money so illegals can get free medical care, free housing, ebt cards,free food, free,free,free. You owe them, don’t ya know!


16 posted on 06/18/2018 9:01:00 AM PDT by notaliberal (St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle,)
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To: BobL

Roads are basically communist now. A truly collective endeavor, even when privatized, since the slowest driver on a road can make things miserable for dang near anybody behind him.

As for pencil-neck, I take it you saw his picture in the original article?


17 posted on 06/18/2018 9:06:31 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks ( The US Constitution ....... Invented by geniuses and God .... Administered by morons ......)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Stop spending on social programs that are not part of the enumerated powers of fedgov, and illegals. Highways are national defense projects and were built under that premise.


18 posted on 06/18/2018 9:08:07 AM PDT by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Year after year they raised the gas tax in California to save the road system. Then they spent the money on pet projects. It’s the same old song: The government identifies the few services the public demands; then diverts the funding to fraud - waste - and abuse. Only to claim that they need to raise taxes to fund the Roads; Schools; Police; or Fire Dept. All the while their yearly budgets and Bloated Bureaucracy grows.


19 posted on 06/18/2018 9:10:41 AM PDT by CoastWatcher
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To: BobL
He has a legitimate point.

How is it that we're OK with "tolling" when it comes to electricity and gas, but not when it comes to highways?

20 posted on 06/18/2018 9:11:39 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's.")
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