We need a 40 cent per gallon hike in the gas tax to pay for more of this.
Note: For some mysterious reason, the Christian Science Monitor ceased its print operations a few months ago and is now only available online as a blog.
Posted on 06/04/2009 10:41:17 AM PDT by Zakeet
The federal kitty used to fix and build highways runs dry in August. It will be the second time in two years that the Highway Trust Fund, which was started in 1956 to build the Interstate system, hasn't collected enough gas-tax revenues to pay for critical needs in transport.
The reasons for the money shortfall are simple: With Americans driving less in a recession and also buying more-fuel-efficient vehicles, revenues from the gas tax are down. And it doesn't help that the federal fee of 18.4 cents per gallon hasn't been raised since 1993, despite inflation and more transport projects.
During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama refused to endorse a gas-tax hike – and he still does. He sees it as adding a burden on the middle class and poor who must drive. But his argument weakened in recent days when he reversed himself on another campaign promise of not seeking a tax on employer-paid health benefits.
[Snip]
Obama's transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, wants to get more Americans out of their cars. "We have to create opportunities for people that do want to use a bicycle or want to walk or want to get on a streetcar or want to ride a light rail," he says.
Such fresh thinking about the future of transport also requires fresh thinking on how to finance it. For now, that includes raising the gas tax as well as indexing it to inflation, although eventually government – both federal and state – will need to find other revenues from transport users.
[Snip]
In the meantime, Americans are stuck with raising the gas tax, as unpleasant as that might be.
It's time for the president to back it.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
We need a 40 cent per gallon hike in the gas tax to pay for more of this.
Note: For some mysterious reason, the Christian Science Monitor ceased its print operations a few months ago and is now only available online as a blog.
The rear tire is flat!
He is working more than he needs to be.....and expending more CO2, increasing his carbon footprint.
In the future this will be a felony punishable by death.
Billions in Highway Taxes Diverted to General Spending
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/14/1494.asp
Billions of dollars collected from motorists from gasoline taxes, tolls, and registration fees are being diverted by state and local governments into uses that have nothing to do with roads and highways.
He is an Idiot would you expect less?
RE: your post
That right there is the source of a littany of problems.
I believe that is a trailer being towed, not a rear fender.
If they are short of gas tax money now just wait until everyone is riding around in Obamamobiles powered by unicorn flatulence and hamster wheels.
A human on a bicycle emits more CO2 than a human driving a modern, well tuned car with a standard internal combustion engine over the same distance.
***The federal kitty used to fix and build highways runs dry in August.****
Turn the interstates into toll roads and see how fast the money flows in and how fast they CAN be built and maintained. It took over 10 years to build interstate 40 through Oklahoma but only two years to build a toll road.
Walking to the shops ‘damages planet more than going by car’
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2195538.ece
A 200 pound man bicycling for 2 hours at 15 mph consumes about 1800 Calories. That's the energy in 450 grams of sucrose (table sugar, C12H22O11). Sucrose is 42% carbon by weight, so that amount of sucrose would have 190 grams of carbon.
Pure octane is 84% carbon by weight, so 226 grams of octane would have that same 190 grams of carbon. At 0.703 g/mL, that amount of octane would have a volume of 321 mL, or 10.85 ounces or 0.085 gallons. To be able to go that same 30 miles on 0.085 gallons of gas, the car would have to get 353 mpg. That's a pretty amazing job of tuning the typical car.
Nobody wants toll roads. If the fuel taxes were spent where they were meant to be spent, instead of special pork projects, we would have no difficulty.
Davis-Bacon
Leave it to the CSM to get it wrong.
“Obama’s transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, wants to get more Americans out of their cars. “
BUT they demand illegal aliens get driver’s licenses.
Anyone who can’t see the insanity in that is beyond help.
I’ve got a few bus/mass transit lines I’d like that jerk to ride before he sentences my wife and others to ride on them.
It’s a little difficult to arrive at work in proper order, when people wet themselves on the bus, then you sit down in a seat not knowing...
Women are haunted on the bus by some guys that have obviously dropped out somewhere along the way, and were probably the one who took a leak in that seat I was talking about. They smell like it. They sit next to them, stick their face in your wife’s face, and can’t for the life of them grasp that your wife doesn’t find them the most eligible bachelor on her list. Of course you’re paying for his monthly pass to harass her too.
You wife has to stand on the street with nobody to protect her, as all sorts of seedy types drive by.
I’ve seen all this. While it’s not a daily occurrence, you’re taking your life in your hands when you enter public transit, and are sentenced to mingle with any psychological nightmare that happens to land in your lap.
If you’re lucky, someone will step in to defend your loved one. And if that person is lucky they’ll live through it.
Like it or not, when you ride mass transit, you are just one nightmare like this away from total disaster.
“Like it or not, when you ride mass transit, you are just one nightmare like this away from total disaster.”
I believe it. I’ve heard the stories. I have managed to live this long without ever having to ride mass transit, except outside of the country. I hope I never have to. I would die within a month if I had to live in a city. For me, no amount of money was worth raising my kids in a large city.
Well AuntB, I think that would have served my family better. No doubt about it.
It’s not an easy decision. It takes a lot of sacrifice. If you have a degree, it’s useless. You’ll never make much money.
Some people are in a position they can’t really get out I’m sure.
That was pretty much my situation as I saw it then. Who knows...
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