Posted on 07/15/2014 12:44:23 PM PDT by cotton1706
The House of Representatives is set to vote Tuesday on a short-term patch to the federal Highway Trust Fund, an issue that is making for interesting alliances on Wednesday.
The White House signaled late Monday night that President Obama supports the short-term patch hatched out of the House Ways and Means Committee, even though he and many congressional Democrats are grumbling about the lack of a longer-term fix. But leading the way in opposition to the plan are conservative groups and lawmakers who want transportation policy to fundamentally change within the next year.
Conservative groups like Heritage Action and the Club for Growth are leading the charge to gradually devolve transportation funding to individual states, arguing they would be in better position to determine their own projects without being dependent on Washington. They say they have been warning about the looming crisis — or, as they put it, the need for a "bailout" — since 2012, the last time Congress shored up the Highway Trust Fund.
"Giving that money to the states is a really uncontroversial idea," Dan Holler, a spokesman for Heritage Action, told Business Insider in an interview. " Nobody across the country cares if some bureaucrats in Washington and handful of committee members aren’t having a say in how they spend state and local money."
For conservatives, highway spending provides another chance to debate federal role in policies they view as better handled by states. In an issue much like their views on education, they say states are uniquely positioned to decide for themselves what projects they want to undertake, providing them a way out of Washington's guidelines and strings attached. And in this case, they also argue that the "offsets" in the bill are gimmicks that won't actually cut spending in the long run.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Here’s a novel idea; how about using gas taxes to actually fix roads, instead of building lightrail boondoggles and bullet trains to nowhere?
So will the interstate highway system now become the intra state highway system?
Yeah, I agree. No bias there...
While I agree that the states should be in charge, this is merely the federal government dumping it back on the states because they think it’s going to become such a stinkeroo they want no part of it.
Now watch the states create toll roads by the thousands, or sell the rights to highways to foreign nationals in mass.
While I don’t like tolls, if I pay a toll, at least I used the road, instead of paying for a road or bridge to be built in Montana or somewhere that I’ll NEVER use.
Bingo!
Buses, light rail, super trains...
You name it, these AHs have been dipping into the transportation funds. Now they belch about no more funds for highways. BS.
Yes cars are getting better mileage today. And yes, there are many many more cars on the highways today too. There’s no shortage of money, for essentials unless someone steals the essentials money for non-essentials.
Please don’t say that. Damn it!
You already pay. That toll road idea is simply the government winning you over to pay more taxes. Refuse them.
Why is this a subject Conservatives buy off on to pay more taxes? It shouldn’t be.
Tell your elected officials to quite squandering your tax dollars on things they weren’t collected to pay for.
If buses are a great idea, the charge more money for the tickets to pay for the fleet. Quit taking the funds out of the highway tax funds.
A toll road is actually a double tax...you pay for roads w gas taxes...then pay an additional tax when you pay for a toll road
Toll roads are also rife with fraud and corruption with the politicians who run them.
Toll roads are really double tax roads
This sounds like a decidedly unconservative idea; I don’t see how this will stop the Fed from attaching strings to the funding much as they do now and use it to pressure states. Better to eliminate federal funding obligations for infrastructure maintenance, and the administrative overhead associated, and just let the “states” (e.g. taxpayers) keep the money to spend as they see fit.
“Please don’t say that. Damn it!
You already pay. That toll road idea is simply the government winning you over to pay more taxes. Refuse them.
Why is this a subject Conservatives buy off on to pay more taxes? It shouldn’t be.”
The idea of a toll road is far preferable to a general gas tax. I live in MA so I don’t pay the tolls on the George Washington Bridge. But out of the Federal Gas Tax I pay to maintain the bridge and the road because it’s part of the “federal highway system”. It makes no sense.
You are however correct about politicians squandering the money and using it for other projects. The tolls in MA were supposed to be removed in 1989, but all of a sudden, they needed to get some bonds for repairs and they’re still there.
I was addressing the principle that local control and funding is better than me paying for some faraway project.
Check out post 11 as a possible alternative to toll roads.
“Toll roads are really double tax roads”
Yes, they are. It should be one or the other but not both. I have no problem in theory paying a state gas tax to maintain the roads and bridges (as long as the money is actually used for that purpose). The tolls in my state should be removed because they were instituted to pay to build the road long ago and the gas tax pays for it’s maintenance (supposedly).
The federal gas tax needs to be eliminated. There should be no such thing as Federal roads or bridges, but it’s a slush fund to get the unions to the polls so it’ll continue.
Actually, Federal fuel taxes aren’t intended to “fix roads.” They are intended for major capital projects, not simple repairs and rehabilitation projects. This is a major part of the problem: literally, the Federal government has money to build new infrastructure but leaves it up to the states to maintain it once it’s been built.
It's completely ridiculous to have a federal gas tax and then dole the money back out to the states. Let the states collect it, or at least block-grant the money back to them.
two words:
Flying Cars!
It’s flipping 2014, where’s my flying car?
Aw, come on. How would Harry get from Vegas to LA without the proposed high speed rail system.
During the Energy Crisis and gas shortage in the early 1970’s, the Feds passed an Alternative Fuel Tax, under the guise of developing alternative fuels. To date, not ONE DROP of alternative fuel has been produced but the tax is still on the books. Wonder where that money went?
“It’s only controversial to statist morons like Yahoo.
It’s completely ridiculous to have a federal gas tax and then dole the money back out to the states. Let the states collect it, or at least block-grant the money back to them.”
That’s why I posted the story. To the elites, the idea of states maintaining the roads and bridges within their borders is completely wacko! They see the states as merely convenient subdivisions of territory used to elect federal people. They don’t see them as individual republics capable of handling their own affairs. But I bet they wouldn’t want to pay taxes to build a road or fix a bridge in Norway or Uganda. Same thing.
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