First cut my taxes, then balance the budget, once the government has a surplus of money we will revise the amount of taxes we are paying. Then let’s talk about infrastructure.
He is certainly right about the FAA Next Gen program. The US is slowpoking around to try to get it done by 2020 while the rest of the world already has their versions in place.
A 6-page plan is better than a 2000 page plan.
...and to think that I felt relieved that Rick Perry was Energy Secretary. I guess the ghost of Rick Perry made it over to Transportation.
User fees for highways is fine as long as you eliminate the gasoline tax; otherwise we are just paying twice for the same service.
User fees for highways is fine as long as you eliminate the gasoline tax; otherwise we are just paying twice for the same service.
Any part of the plans that pertain to “mass transit” will fail to reduce reliance on tax-payer revenues if Amtrak and Amtrak as a business model is not sold-off and totally privatized.
Amtrak has the land-and-access ability for “high speed rail” that could be profitable, but lacks the ability - due to political constraints - to shed all of Amtrak operations that are not now and cannot be run profitably.
Unless that is understood generally, about all “mass transit”, the new “infrastructure” plans could wind up including new demands on taxpayers to subsidize transportation elements that cannot be run profitably.
The best signal Trump and the GOP could give to kick off their new “infrastructure” agenda would be to start with selling Amtrak with no political conditions placed on what the private buyers do with it, nor what the private company would have to do. There are existing railroad industry interests that might jump at the chance to have a free hand in running the best possible and profitable passenger rail system.