Posted on 04/29/2014 6:24:18 PM PDT by Nachum
Washington - Drivers on the nation’s Interstates could soon be paying more to travel. A transportation proposal sent to Congress by the Obama administration on Tuesday would remove a prohibition on tolls for existing Interstate highways, clearing the way for states to raise revenue on roads that drivers currently use at no cost. Congress banned tolls on Interstates in 1956 when it created the national highway system under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The administration said lifting the toll ban would help address a shortfall in funding to pay for highway repairs. The tolls, along with other changes, could provide an
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Have the Feds spent those funds elsewhere, instead, such as paying the Obamacare “navigators” to scam people into signing up or a failed program?
You have it backwards.
Fuel taxes don't provide enough money for funding and maintaining highways. Federal and state income taxes help make up part of the difference.
Cuz let’s face it - there just aren’t enough taxes!
Shovel ready? I guess a trillion a year for the recovery act wasn’t enough. Gotta squueze a little more cash out of everyone.
By the way...While driving throug Honolulu todya (I avoid Honolulu likenthe plague) the federal courthouse STILL has a giant sign declaring this stimulus project is thanks to Obama. Only been painting it non stop for the past 5 years. But the sign is up proudly making sure everyone knows this was a recovery act project signed by Obama. There are so many scams on the island and this buikding rates among the highest.
Well, it sure as heck hasn't gone for road repairs. And they expect us to believe that the toll money won't go down the same democRathole that the gas tax money has disappeared into?
The idiots are building bike paths everywhere...and funding moronic urban mass transit.
In my rural county there is a bike path on a road going literally nowhere to nowhere. The bike path starts well outside of town (dangerous to get to it). The bike ends abruptly as the road turns into a narrow two lane country road with speed limit 45 (most go 50+). The only reason for such stupidity is federal money with strings attached. You can thank our RINO congressman who always brags about the pork he pulls in and the stupid voters who fall for it.
if you walk too much they’ll tax your feet.
This obammy gub mint sucks.
I agree, he’s an arrogant ass.
One can almost see it now. There will be sparsely traveled Blue highways with high tolls through states controlled by liberals with few accommodations and no places to stop. There will be heavily traveled highways with no tolls in states controlled by conservatives. They will be lined with accommodations, attractions, dining, etc. The nighttime satellite image of CONUS will look like a checkerboard of light and dark.
Something else to keep in mind is that fuel tax revenues are falling over time -- due to the effective decline associated with inflation and the actual decline brought about by improvements in fuel efficiency. We buy less fuel for every mile we travel today than we did ten years ago.
Backdoor way of nudging into UN Agenda 21.
Make it too expensive to travel. This would hurt all types of business that depend on travelers to stay in business.
As a point of interest, I believe the Pennsylvania Turnpike -- which was built before World War II -- was the first major limited-access road in the U.S.
“So... No, Perry did not propose tolls on Interstates in Texas, AFAIK.”
Actually, that was part of it. Specifically the TTC plan had the state request permission from the feds for “tolling on sections of Interstate Highways”. It wasn’t anymore specific than that. But it made sense - there was no any private trucker would pay close to $1.00 per mile to go on those private roads, unless he was “encouraged” to do so. Unfortunately, the last time I looked, the official TTC plan had been sanitized from the web.
Perry also tried that stunt on a several state freeways (i.e., converting them to toll roads), but thankfully got an earful. The one case where his people were lucky to make it back to Austin alive was Highway 249 in Northwest Houston. It is/was a freeway, and they wanted to extend it north. So they wanted to toll the existing freeway first to pay for the extension. In the end, they got the message, and only tolled the extension.
In my area, they just spent $200 million on an 8 mile stretch of road which bypasses a very congested section. It's a great improvement, but not only did they include bike lanes on the shoulders of the road itself, but they threw in a separate 14 foot wide road (a "shared use path") in parallel with the main road for pedestrians and slower cyclists. Needless to say, the main road sees plenty of traffic, but you rarely see anyone on the bike lanes or the separate road.
True, Obama and the libertarians seem in agreement on this.
If you’re going to claim to convey your adversary’s position, at least find a link and a quote.
So a troll gets on a conservative site, to call conservatives trolls, when they disagree with the oh so leftwing, libertarianism.
Obama has displayed the weak, passive, foreign policy of the libertarians, that will hurt Paul now that people see the effect.
3.3 International Affairs
American foreign policy should seek an America at peace with the world. Our foreign policy should emphasize defense against attack from abroad and enhance the likelihood of peace by avoiding foreign entanglements. We would end the current U.S. government policy of foreign intervention, including military and economic aid.
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