Cantor Caves? Tweets Supprt for 'Smart' infrastructure spending.

I read the long article that was referenced to by someone on here. It is spot on! Folks, it is drawing near that we have to ditch the GOP and start a Constitutional Party!

No.

The GOP ruling class needs to be forced to form its own third party of "moderates."

The GOP belongs to Sarah Palin now. The "moderates" just haven't figured it out yet.

Why should my State of New Jersey ask people from MINNESOTA, OR NEW MEXICO, OR TEXAS - TO BUILD IMPROVEMENTS TO THE AIRPORTS IN NEW JERSEY - OR NJ BRIDGES ?????

Because a lot of those airports and highways and bridges are Federal assets - they're owned and governed by the Federal Goverment. At least out past the original 13 colonies (see the US Constitution, Article I, Section 8, clause 17).

Why should a State get stuck repairing and maintaining a Federal road? Why should they have to pick up the bill for a Federal asset? Rather, the Feds should spend their money maintaining their own properties and assets - and stop trying to buy people with giveaways and freebies.

New Jersey has 431 miles of Feral government highways.

Texas has over 3,200 miles of Feral government highways.

New Jersey has a total road mileage of over 38,000 miles. 2,324 miles belongs to NJDOT. 404 belong to one of the thug-controlled Authorities. 6,439 belong to one of it's 21 counties. 29,020 belong to municipalities. 649 belong to parks.

Some exhorbitant amount, perhaps half (the State budgets are presented, like all government budgets, in insanely idiotic presentations designed to obfuscate what they're really doing) of the State's transportation money comes from Feral government sources. The total, however, is perhaps somewhere around 10% of the entire State budget. So if the State if NJ just inhaled and tightened it's belt, it certainly could get by without Feral highway funds. But so far, the State Legislature, Governor and Congressmen have never in it's entire history chosen to abandon sucking as much money as possible out of the Feral government.

So thanks, other 49 States (or is it 56 ?). We're really all doing the same thing, right ?

Sounds great, except the Feral government is sucking our will to live with it's Feral regulations. And it's borrowing 43 cents, perhaps 50 by now, out of every dollar it "gives" to us.

I guess if we want to be honest, each State is like a crackhead, except they're addicted to Feral slush money. That crack/money feels sooooo good. Even though it's about ready to blow up in a Treasury debt bubble. Who cares, it feels soooooo good.

So, of the 431 Federal highway miles in NJ, the Federal Government shouldn’t pay to maintain any of them?

That’s the thing - I’m OK with the Government spending on maintenance of critical infrastructure like roads and airports. If there’s too much spending, then cut something else - not the road, bridge, and airport maintenance of its own assets.

Consider Denver International Airport. Wound up costing just under $5 billion. That size project could EASILY be funded with private capital; I just looked very quickly, it looked like a variety of participants. But at $5 billion, that’s not too big a project for private sector capital.

And voila, the financial reports are here (click on Financial Reports, Yes I understand, then dowload the pdf at Annual 2010:

http://business.flydenver.com/

The thing is making money.

Big projects do not have to be funded by the Feral government because they are too big. If they make sense financially, they can be built and operated by the private sector. No government cost, no government risk. Private sector investment, private sector takes the risk instead.

The private sector has simply been trained to always look for free giveaway Feral money.

Does the Federal government have a role in developing rules for air transportation, allocating radio frequencies, air traffic control, etc., certainly. Money from an already insolvent Feral government that’s half borrowed - that’s just an economic drag on everyone.

The myth is that things that “too big” for the private sector need to be funded by government, but in truth the private sector has, in total, more capital than the government. It just allocates it much more wisely than the government. If you have a big project that’s not really needed, or some new technology that’s not economically viable - you get some government stooges to make up some heroic story and raid the public treasury to fund your project. If it fails, it was a “government” project - so you don’t have to pay them back !

I’m say they constitute about 1% of NJ road mileage.

They also constitute about 1% of all Federal road mileage.

But the Feral government is funding maybe HALF of NJ’s transportation budget. About a billion dollars, perhaps closer to $2 billion.

Seems like too much Federal money going to NJ for 431 out of 38,000 miles of road...

If you look through the projects in the one link I had - there are all sorts of bogus projects in the NJDOT plan. This is slush money pure and simple.

What I’m saying is easy: NJ should simply take over the 431 miles - maintain it just like the do the other 38,000 miles of their own roads. And then take NO money from the Feds. The Feral government would save over $1 billion EVERY YEAR from here on out !

If that was forced on NJ by Congress NJ would just... get along. We’d survive. We’d just have to decide how much garbage we were going to cut out of our Transportation fantasyland spending. I bet we’d cut. Trubble is, the mobsters - sorry, ex-mobsters - would NOT want to have their juicy contracts cut. Ouch.

Here’s an interesting link...

According to the article (I’d have to look it up)... my WONDERFUL Congressman Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ) recently proposed a bill to allow states to opt out of Federal funding !!!!!!!

http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/transportation/highway-funding

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