Posted on 04/30/2014 11:37:42 AM PDT by all the best
Whenever the beltway bandits run low on excuses to run-up the national debt they trot out florid tales of crumbling infrastructure—that is, dilapidated roads, collapsing bridges, failing water and sewer systems, inadequate rail and public transit and the rest. But most especially it presents a swell opportunity for Washington to create millions of “jobs”. And, according to the Obama Administration’s latest incarnation of this age old canard, it can be done in a fiscally responsible manner through the issuance of “green ink” bonds by a national infrastructure bank, not “red ink” bonds by the US Treasury. The implication, of course, is that borrowings incurred to repair the nation’s allegedly “collapsing” infrastructure would be a form of “self-liquidating” debt. That is, these “infrastructure” projects would eventually pay for themselves in the form of enhanced national economic growth and efficiency.
Except that the evidence for dilapidated infrastructure is just bogus beltway propaganda cynically peddled by the construction and builder lobbies. Moreover, the infrastructure that actually does qualify for self-liquidating investment is overwhelmingly local in nature—-urban highways, metropolitan water and sewer systems, airports. These should be funded by users fees and levies on local taxpayers—not financed with Washington issued bonds and pork-barreled through its wasteful labyrinth of earmarks and plunder.
Nowhere is the stark distinction between the crumbling infrastructure myth and the factual reality more evident than in the case of the so-called deficient and obsolete bridges. To hear the K-Street lobbies tell it—-motorist all across American are at risk for plunging into the drink at any time owing to defective bridges.
Even Ronald Reagan fell for that one. During the long trauma of the 1981-1982 recession the Reagan Administration had stoutly resisted the temptation to implement a Keynesian style fiscal stimulus and jobs program–notwithstanding an unemployment rate that peaked in double digits.
(Excerpt) Read more at davidstockmanscontracorner.com ...
It's just a ploy by the ‘History Chanel’ so they can promote programming for idiots who don't know diddly about history!!!
It’s all about increasing government spending.
That increases government borrowing.
That keeps the government dependent on the banking syndicate.
It also keeps up the need for ever increasing taxes on the sheeple.
These taxes mean mr. banker, at the end of the day, gets a percent of everything everyone produces.
Mr. banker controls the world by controlling government leaders and business leaders.
Mr. banker determines how capital is allocated, i.e., what we will work on producing every day and how we go about it.
Mr. banker, of course, means the heads of the most powerful elite financial interests in the world.
It's just a ploy by the ‘History Chanel’ so they can promote programming for idiots who don't know diddly about history!!!
The problem is not that it’s “created out of thin air”.
The problem is that the taxpayer’s government is borrowing instead of creating money itself.
No, they are creating it out of thin air. When the dollar collapses you will get it.
1. Divorce “mass transit” funding from the federal funds/revenue derived from fuel taxes.
2. Divorce spending of federal fuel tax revenue, or from any fund supported by such revenue, from being spent for anything other than the federal interstate highway system and any bridge or tunnel crossings that cross state-lines AND are supportive of interstate commerce.
3. Require all other currently approved uses of federal revenue from federal fuel taxes to be the responsibility of the states themselves.
I would also like to penalize states for the diversion of fuel taxes to uses other than roads, highways, bridges and tunnels, but cannot come up with a legitimate way to enact such penalties as offsets against any federal funding allocation the states would otherwise be entitled to. I imagine that would have to be left to the voters in the states.
The one argument that I would make with the authors statistical analysis is the use of “per-capita” comparisons between states. It has little to do with their highway requirements. Farmers in sparsely populated states have as much need to get their products transported, around & completely across their own state, and beyond it - no matter how many miles long and wide the state is, just as much as do industrialists in more heavily populated and possibly smaller states. A better comparison is between states with similar number of miles of roads and bridges, not people.
If a trillion plus of stimulus in 2007, 2008 and under Obama didn’t fix the infrastructure, then you can’t trust these people to fix infrastructure. Ergo, don’t give them the money.
If the government would stick to legitimate functions like infrastructure, then infrastructure would be pristine.
I’ve driven about 2,000,000 miles in my lifetime and I HAVE YET to land in a river due to a failed bridge. In fact, the TOTAL DEATH TOLL of people going off a failed bridge in that time is likely under 100 people - well under the number MURDERED in a typical Chicago summer.
Yes, it would be good to fix our highways, as some are wearing out. BUT NO, the idea of tolling people 20 cents PER MILE to do so is simply NOT NECESSARY.
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