Pinging general and Trans-Texas Corridor ping lists.
"Had I been on the phone, I would have shot back, "When did I-90 ever pay for itself?""
It paid for itself when they started taxing gasoline and having yearly license fees for automobiles.
Gee, not even out of the first paragraph before their whole premise is shot to hell.
There's some real belly laughs in there. Especially the part about car theft and middle eastern named car owners near nuke plants.
Willie might like it though.
What makes him think that there will be only one bus company unless the government meddles and tinkers long and hard enough to insure it?
If I wanted to run a van-based jitney service, under a non-governmental system I'd be able to do so without begging the government for permission in the form of licenses and artificially-scarce medallions, and such competition for fares would drive the price down and the level of service and convenience up.
I'll have to read this in more detail to find any other logical fallacies here. It seems he's making the mistake of assuming that the bloated, inefficient transportation systems that governments set up on the basis of rent-seeking and political patronage would continue to exist in the private sector.
This bozo pulls $7.50 out of his #$@#$ and bases his remaining arguement on it. What a moron.
You should'nt even address an arguement based on a false premise. Go straight for the premise.
The author of this piece is incapable of logic. He just likes choo-choo trains.
Quite possible. That which we call modern society is still rather new in the scheme of things (the time he spoke of as the demarcation period was still dominated by the horse, although that was changing). This society is also quite interdependant on all its constituent parts, and fragile to boot. Drastic changes to one area, will inevitably lead to drastic changes in areas which may not have even been considered when the original analysis for the wanted change was accomplished.
Even if every possible cause-effect relationship conceivable were factored in, then Murphy's law would dictate that a cause-effect realtionship that had not been conceived would appear, usually at the worst possible time...
the infowarrrior
Having led you down the garden path, I now deposit you at the gates of hell. Let's take a look at what the strict application of the principle of TANSTAAFL has wrought.That sounds like the kind of America in which I dream of living -- the America of Norman Rockwell, John Steinbeck, and Theodore Roosevelt, only with better sanitation, no segregation, and modern health care. (And he didn't even mention how much cleaner and more beautiful America would be without truck stops, billboards, and smog!)* America's highways are empty.
* People have crowded back into the cities, taking public transportation rather than driving.
* Automobile ownership is only for the wealthy.
* Flying is only for the wealthy.
* Trains are everywhere, and railroad bonds have higher Moody's ratings than US government bonds.
* The far suburbs have reverted to farmland.
* People buy their meat and produce at small community-based stores.
Admit it, folks: without big-time federal $$$, the "free-market capitalist" automobile, construction, oil, motor transport and associated industries go bye-bye. Trains are the most cost-efficient mode of transport extant.
* Agribusiness has yielded to the family farm.No more cardboard tomatoes, mealy apples, or tortured-cow hamburgers? Farmers a respected class again instead of being forced to live as debt-ridden welfare junkies? Hell, I'd buy into the author's scenario on the basis of that alone. Count me in!
He is full of ....
Myth #8: Other Transportation Modes Are More Highly Subsidized than Amtrak
Amtrak management argues that other forms of intercity transportation--such as buses, cars, and airlines--are just as heavily subsidized by taxpayers as Amtrak. They point out that the roads used by buses and autos were built with federal (and state) dollars. Moreover, the airlines benefit from the air traffic control system that is federally operated through the Federal Aviation Administration. However, there is virtually no net taxpayer subsidy of either highways or airlines. Maintenance of the infrastructure for both of these transport modes is financed by taxes on users rather than by general taxpayer subsidies. [35]
With respect to both highways and airlines, vehicle capital and operating expenses are fully paid by users. [36] Public facility costs also are financed through user fees. [37] Road construction and repair are funded through the gasoline tax paid by drivers. The FAA's costs are largely covered by an airline ticket tax. The federal government has a highway and an airline trust fund, each of which has accumulated a large surplus balance ($12 billion in the air trust fund and $22 billion in the highway trust fund). [38] For that reason, a case could be made that airline travelers and drivers pay more than their own way.
By contrast, nearly 40 percent of Amtrak costs are paid by general taxpayers--$850 million by federal taxpayers and additional subsidies by state taxpayers. If all intercity travelers were subsidized to the same extent as Amtrak passengers, an annual federal taxpayer subsidy of $125 billion would have been required in 1992 [39]--three times the entire Department of Transportation budget.
To "level the playing field" among transportation modes, Amtrak has proposed that Congress create a trust fund. However, the proposed Amtrak trust fund would not be financed by taxes on users of Amtrak services; it would be financed instead by gasoline taxes on highway users--that is, on travelers who do not use Amtrak. The only true Amtrak "user fee" is the cost of the ticket--which currently falls far short of covering Amtrak's costs.
Source: http://cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-266.html
The author is a FReeper. One of the originals. He makes killer biscotti, too.
I'm not sure why everyone is flipping out at this article. There are some mistakes, but the premise is generally accurate: subsidies cause behavior that would not otherwise occur without them. I do wish to correct the notion that pre-1919 and the Eisenhower road trip automobiles were the exclusive domain of the wealthy.
Firstly, Ike's trip is overplayed in history. To its day, it had little effect. Motorists had since the 1904 St. Louis Fair been protesting, and to great effect, the condition of the nation's roads. That year, hundreds of autos from across the country drove to St. Louis in order to publicize poor road conditions (as opposed to driving them in defiance of their condition to prove one's heroism, as did, for example, Horatio Jackson in his Winton in 1903 -- a story that was meaningless to 1903)
Secondly, the remarkable growth of the American automobile industry from 1909 to the beginning of the US entry to WWI was a product of the MIDDLE CLASS acceptance of the automobile. Henry Ford had by the time of Ike's trip sold several millions of cars which were bought principally by the middle class and farmers. Even in those days roads were subsidized by the national and local governments. Washington sent money for "postal roads," and states, counties, and cities regularly built or repaired roads with monies from general revenues, especially property and income taxes. While automobilists paid fees and excise taxes on cars, gasoline and tires, the roads they drove on were not paid exclusively by those taxes.
The year 1919 marked a moment when government taxation nearly killed the automobile. Just as the government had turned to the railroads for control, regulation and taxes, to help pay for WWI, Woodrow Wilson turned to the automobile for the same. Doing it, he nearly killed it. The industry hit a terrific depression in 1919/20 that knocked off a good half the producers, leaving only the financially strong to survive. All this was either exacerbated or caused by government interference in the economy and in automobiles by reguations, price controls, and taxes.
Finally, when the Wilson government nationalized the management of the railroads in the name of the war economy, it near killed the railroads and other industries (like automobiles) that depended upon them for delivery of supplies and shipment of end products. The auto industry responded by proving itself an effective alternative to the rails in shipping mass quantities of goods over the roads on trucks (including the new innovation, refer trucks). Indeed, excepting for 1919's anti-automobile tax and regulatory policies, the year marked not digression in automobiles but great advance.
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Here in Washington? Riiiiiiiiiight. I'm calling "Bulls!t" on that statement.
And what's the first part of the sentence have to do with the second part?
This guy's an idiot or a liar or both. I'll say both.
Either way, it's pointless to read the rest of the article. You can't trust the facts of an article that immediately crops up with statements like that.
Just that bit alone is wrong. How could the author even write "not socialism" and "insist on a level playing field" in the same sentence.
One among many silly errors in this article.
In a world without subsidies, it makes more sense to have a short-haul crew take the truck to a railhead, strap it onto a railcar, haul it by train to another railhead, and have another short-haul crew take the truck to its final destination.
In a pre-computer tracking & routing system (and with the mechanics available them), yes, this could take considerable time, compared to "fresh produce." But it's not hard to consider a system that assembles a train last-minute, with specific box-cars on specific carriers, adding and removing at stations along the way as the train wends its way around the country.
There isn't a perfect analogy to computer network communication protocols in this but I've seen and worked with stuff that comes close -- and at MUCH shorter delivery times than even high-speed trains.
If your solution to "TANSTAAFL" is limited to early 20th-century technology, the end result will no doubt look like early 20th century.
It would be interesting to know how he fudged the numbers and redefined terms to conclude that highways are subsidized.
It would also be intersting to know how he or Ron Sims thinks $350 more per month (which is more than I spend currently on gasoline) is going to fly.
It’s happening
Thanks for posting this twelve years ago!!!
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