Posted on 04/16/2012 11:26:07 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Nothing shows off the worst of Congress like a highway bill. And this year's scramble for cash is worse than ever because the 18.4¢ a gallon gasoline tax will raise $70 billion less than the $263 billion Congress wants to spend over the next five years. Let the mayhem ensue.
The Senate has passed a two-year $109 billion bill sponsored by Barbara Boxer of California that bails out the highway trust fund with general revenues, including some $12 billion for such nonessentials as the National Endowment for the Oceans and the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The bill requires little or no reform. The prevailing Senate view is the more concrete that gets poured, the more jobs back home. So more "shovel-ready" nonstimulus. …
What's missing is any new thinking. Clear evidence of inefficient transportation spending comes from a new Treasury study estimating that traffic gridlock costs motorists more than $100 billion a year in delays and wasted gas. In cities like Los Angeles, commuters waste the equivalent of two extra weeks every year in traffic jams. This congestion could be alleviated by building more highway lanes where they are most needed and using market-based pricing—such as tolls—for using roads during peak travel times. …
One reason roads are shortchanged is that liberals believe too many Americans drive cars. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has been pushing a strange "livability" agenda, which he defines as "being able to take your kids to school, go to work, see a doctor, drop by the grocery or post office, go out to dinner and a movie, and play with your kids in a park, all without having to get in your car." This is the mind of the central planner at work, imagining that Americans all want to live in his little utopia. …
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
...just climb aboard the government provided boxcar for a trip to a city near you in an area where you will be able to mingle with others of different ethnic backgrounds...playing all American games like cops and robbers,eat at your own risk,and the family favorite, find little Jenny before she's sold
Can anybody confirm how Fuel Taxes are charged are the a % of the cost of Gasoline and Diesel or are the Cents per gallon. If they are a percentage % of the price the Federal Government and State Government are cleaning up n the user when they are buying Gas or Diesel. I am a little confused on this. Can somebody confirm.
If its a percentage % then Obama is collecting lots of money from all of us and should stop crying about the high cost as he is the cause of the high cost. Dr. Chu wants $8.00 per gallon as the Federal Government is then making a big cash windfall from the tax collection.
Remember that electric vehicle are not paying for highways and bridges as they are not paying fuel tax.
Does the bill include placing more plates with raised metal ridges in sidewalks, so the blind know when they have crossed the street? This is one of the “shovel ready” projects they are doing in Louisville.
This is the mind of the central planner at work, imagining that Americans all want to live in his little utopia. …
Little Utopia... I’ve lived in several big cities over the years. Utopia? Not for me not even a dystopia, I hated it with a passion beyond belief. Even to the point of leaving a good job to take a lesser paying one in a place where I didn’t have to hear or ‘smell’ my next door neighbor.
So this idea of a one-size fits all lifestyle just will not cut it.
Laughable, considering the source ...
In cities like Los Angeles, commuters waste the equivalent of two extra weeks every year in traffic jams.
And a taxpayer in Baltimore needs to worry about this?
I love the "new thinking" as evidenced by the journal ...
Since part of the taxes on fuel are to go to highways.....where is this money going if not spent on highways? We need to get rid of the general fund and start spending money on items that tax money collected for.
Definitely cents per gallon. Been that way since the beginning of the progressives’ magical Highway Trust Fund; and even if it were a percentage, it wouldn’t get rid of deficits. More social engineering that just ain’t worked out like they thought it would . . .
Its so many cents per gallon, at least in my state, it is not a percentage. Remember, up until recently gas was pretty cheap, no way they would have risked tax rates at a percentage of price, that’s too unpredictable for funding purposes.
“...idea of a one-size fits all lifestyle just will not cut it.”
It didn’t work for Mao, Che, Fidel, Stalin, etc.!! Why the h*#l does anyone with a brain think it will work here?
To progressives, the best thing about railroads is that people riding them are not in automobiles, which are subversive of the deference on which progressivism depends. Automobiles go hither and yon, wherever and whenever the driver desires, without timetables. Automobiles encourage people to think they—unsupervised, untutored, and unscripted—are masters of their fates. The automobile encourages people in delusions of adequacy, which make them resistant to government by experts who know what choices people should make.
Time was, the progressive cry was “Workers of the world unite!” or “Power to the people!” Now it is less resonant: “All aboard!”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_tax#United_States
United States
State Diesel Taxes, April 2009Fuel taxes in the United States vary by state. The United States federal excise tax on gasoline, as of February 2011, is 18.4 cents per gallon (4.86 ¢/L) and 24.4 cents per gallon (6.45 ¢/L) for diesel fuel. In January 2011, motor gasoline taxes averaged 48.1 cents per gallon (12.71 ¢/L) and diesel fuel taxes averaged 53.1 cents per gallon (14.03 ¢/L).[9] For the first quarter of 2009, the mean state gasoline tax is 27.2 cents per US gallon, plus 18.4 cents per US gallon federal tax making the total 45.6 cents per US gallon (12.0 ¢/L). For diesel, the mean state tax is 26.6 cents per US gallon plus an additional 24.4 cents per US gallon federal tax making the total 50.8 cents US per gallon (13.4 ¢/L).[10] There are also a few states and municipalities that charge sales tax on top of the excise taxes and the retail price.
This is because that is just the way them likes it.
It is not as if any private citizen can come out and patch the potholes themselves or something.
What are you gonna do? Complain? Pfffff, how much more state and local tax you’d like to pony up, eh?
I don’t see how making people pay up to a dollar per mile to drive (as they do now on a congestion-priced highway in California) is doing anyone any favors.
It probably makes more sense to simply kill the “mass transit” subsidies, but still our freeways free, rather than as a “revenue engine” to dish out crony money to well-connected people.
But maybe a Rick Perry supporter can tell me why I’m wrong.
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