Posted on 07/07/2014 7:38:43 AM PDT by Red Badger
Washington needs more money and if it doesn’t get it, your morning commute will become:
a) more expensive
b) more unpleasant
c) both
The problem, you see, is that the Highway Trust Fund is "going broke,” by the Beltway’s curious definition of the phrase. It is sort of the way that after a round of painful “cuts,” spending somehow still goes up.
The Highway Trust Fund takes in more than 18 cents on every gallon of gasoline sold in this country, so there is plenty of revenue. Just not enough to meet Washington’s needs and desires. People are driving more fuel efficient cars and with gas already around $4 a gallon, not taking the trips they might otherwise take. So instead of having the $50 billion that Congress budgeted, the trust fund is looking at $34 billion.
So cuts are coming, possibly as soon as August, and, as Keith Laing of The Hill reports:
Those cuts could leave drivers facing congested or damaged roads, sparking anger ahead of November's midterms.
Sort of like closing down the monuments during one of those government shutdowns. The idea being to inflict immediate pain.
The president has gotten involved, talking about the jobs that are at stake and saying:
“We’re not going to be able to fund the Highway Trust Fund and to ramp up our investment in infrastructure without acts of Congress.”
Gasoline is not a discretionary item in the budget of most Americans. Making it more expensive means there will be less to spend elsewhere. The people calling for urgent measures to keep the trust fund from going broke say they are concerned about jobs.” Theirs.
One wonders just how much pork a penny a gallon in new taxes would buy.
No talk, of course, of privatizing. Using the tolls mechanism.
Just more taxes. For jobs.
Same Bull$hit, typical day, enabling media.
You are close to the problem but still wide of the mark.
The problem with federal hiways, especially interstates is the truck traffic and then poorly designed roadways to begin with.
The right lane is first to fail because that’s where the big trucks drive. The load on the roadway causes it to fail. Many of us that regularly drive on interstates always drive in the left lane because it is a better road.
The second really significant maintenance problem is old concrete roadways. Although the portland cement concrete is very durable and in theory better than flexible asphalt concrete, the edges at the expansion joints are not. The square edges at the expansion joints break off, and wear into rounded corners. The result is a discontinuity at the expansion joint resulting in a bump and noise at every joint. The defect is extremely expensive to remedy.
Many states have paved over the portland cement concrete with asphalt only to discover that the flexible asphalt gets squeezed down into the gap and the whapa whapa whapetee continues. The left lane is generally not as bad because there are no trucks, no serious loading on the road way.
In the end, the problem for the roadbed is one of too many psi, for too long. One solution would be to add additional wheels to trucks to reduce the psi loading. Those lacking the wheel and large psi loading would be required to pay a fee.
The implementation of a psi tax would be preferable to a general rise in fuel tax
So, if the federal tax remains constant at 18 cents a gallon, and the money projected to be taken in drops from 50 billion dollars to 34 billion dollars, does that really mean that gasoline sales have dropped by 32% this year? That is astounding.
And what about all of the people who used to work and drove to their jobs and back home everyday?
Millions upon millions of them are no longer driving. That’s a whole lot of gasoline that wasn’t purchased and taxes weren’t collected on.
Nope, bureaucrats stealing money from it causing highway trust fund to go broke.
You'd think so, but (for example) the current VW Golf is nearly 50% heavier than its 1984 ancestor.
Besides, it's the heavy trucks that do most of the roadway damage.
“Inflation has made 18 cents too small a tax combined with the fact that most sedans (Malibu, Accord, Camry, Fusion) get better than 30 mpg highway.”
The average vehicle on the road is 11 1/2 years old, and it isn’t a toy car getting 30 mpg.
Trucks and SUV’s by far outnumber everything else on the road.
I doubt the fleet average mpg for what is on the road is over 18 mpg.
Gas prices and a crappy economy has forced people to stop driving much except to/from work etc.
The Socialist Hippie Mantra: Eat locally, Spend other’s money globally...
The socialist get what they want and can still whine about it....
[ So, if the federal tax remains constant at 18 cents a gallon, and the money projected to be taken in drops from 50 billion dollars to 34 billion dollars, does that really mean that gasoline sales have dropped by 32% this year? That is astounding. ]
Less people working, less people commuting to work, less people buying stuff because they have less money = less goods beibng movied around.
Of course the “Lie Bubble” the current economy is being built upon is still being inflated and will not burst for a while yet...
Frankly, most any government cannot be trusted with getting the best value for the dollar, no matter for what it is.
Politics, greed, corruption and just plain laziness are ALWAYS in play. It is the way of the government worker.
to all !!
Guess what....
They continue to spend $billions- yes billions
on Choo choo trains- in mineeeesooota- Kalifornia
and other places- and PURPOSEFULLY let our roads
degenerate to pot-hole heaven-
need a $15billion “big Dig” in Boston- takes more than 20 years?- no problem
approx. 15 miles of “commuter track” for mpls/st.paul- no problem— $3 Billion
Lies and more damn lies from the Govt.
It’s in the lockbox right next to the Social Security Trust Fund...
The Law of Unintended Consequences is implemented yet again.
The only crime in the Universe that is ultimately punished is that of stupidity, and for which there is no appeal of the sentence. It can wipe out an entire species if that species persists in doing stupid things.
Humanity is getting dangerously close to triggering that response from the Universe.
The funds collected for the maintenance and improvement of our roadway infrastructure were more than sufficient for that purpose, if the funds had not constantly been raided for unnecessary and unrelated purposes, or simply “borrowed” for the general fund as in the instance of Social Security and Medicare.
It is one thing to borrow on a temporary basis, it is another entirely to take with no program or intent to return the funds.
Not merely stupid. Stupid raised to an art form and on an exponential curve.
Yes Virginia, there IS a maximum level of stupid.
And it won’t be the Empire that strikes back, it will be the whole Universe.
You obviously have never seen a 18 wheelers road tax bill have ya?
Don’t forget these trucks get 5-9 MPG on a good day.
The dependable Sen. Corker R-TN supports raising the tax— which is typical for the senator from Tennessee Valley Authority (soon to be owned by him and other “private” investors, once he delivers Amnesty for obamaumao’s selective tapping of the sale to this “group”).
The individual costs of regular businesses are not taken into account. The slush fund that is the “trust fund” is a piggy bank for bridges to nowhere and crappy asphalt patch jobs on national highways. Graft, corrupt permanati DOT bureaucrats— oh yes and Harry Reid’s “billion dollar” high speed rail to Vegas.... yep, need that to save all them buses everyday, driving by the windmills.
Dumb A-holes... all of them. Corrupt and greedy and think we don’t know. Corker small man syndrome as well.
I say, let the states handle it by raising their own taxes. The Feds jumped the shark when they started diverting money to transit in 1982.
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