State seeks to place tolls on interstate highways

Cameron Herald ^ | September 25, 2007 | Frank Summers, County Judge

[oldbrowser]

Once tolls are in place, the government will refuse to take them all down at a later date.

The toll booths will be taken down once the roads are falling apart.

The state will then be encouraged to pass a bond measure to finance rebuilding the roads and the whole process will repeat itself forever.

[snoringbear]

“Don’t even think of charging me to pay again.”

I am not a proponent of increasing taxes, or double paying for anything. But we need additionqal highway capacity really bad, and as of yesterday. Frankly, I don’t see another solution other than increasing the use of toll roads to finance new construction. I-35 has become a virtual parking lot, congested 24 hr’s per day. I have read every comment on this string and I have not seen a valid counter proposal to tolls. All I have seen is “no way”. So, I ask you “no way’ers”, what’s your alternative solution?

[johnthebaptistmoore]

The entire U.S. may go Democratic very soon!

[samm1148]

“All I have seen is “no way”. So, I ask you “no way’ers”, what’s your alternative solution?”

Actually use state gas taxes, the state’s share of federal road and gas taxes to actually BUILD roads. Paying toll takers $22 an hour and financing trips for bureaucrats along with a fleet of state cars and planes is not the answer.

We have toll roads here in Pennsyltuckia. They are constantly in a state of disrepair and still congested. If you don’t believe me then look at Overdrive magazine. Tolls are not the answer. Fiscal responsibility is.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

I suppose I could inject a suggestion to stimulate discussion:

Replace the state gasoline and titling taxes with a consumption tax on all goods and services of no more than 2 percent.

• Unlike the gasoline tax, from which one-fourth of revenues MUST be spent on education, the entirety of the consumption tax can be spent on roads.
• Unlike the gasoline tax, which is fixed, the consumption tax will yield increasing revenues with increasing inflation (the real rate, not the official rate) as well as with economic growth.
• Unlike the gasoline tax, revenues won't be murdered by higher-mileage vehicles and shrinking gas demand due to high gas prices.
• Unlike the gasoline and titling taxes, this tax is broadly spread over everything rather than affecting vehicle and gasoline purchases disproportionately.

If the consumption tax fails to provide adequately for state roads, make up the difference with tolls, pass-through financing, bonds, and/or privatization/PPPs.

The one major drawback to this that I can see, besides the susceptibility to misspending, is that the tax will be in addition to Texas's high sales tax (about 8 percent if I remember correctly). So you'd wind up with a low tax on services and a high total tax on goods.

[DoughtyOne]

Your gas taxes, vehicle registration and driver’s license fees are supposed to go toward maintaining the transportation infrasture for vehicles in your state. States have found all sorts of good uses for those funds, other than what they are supposed to be used for.

On of the favorites these days is to waste billions on mass transit and the augmentation of bus lines. Those are not the bonified things these funds are dedicated to.

Mayors, municipal transportation commissions, city councils, county agencies, your state legislature and the governor are the culprits that combine to misdirect these funds.

Some states take the funds and use them on totally unrelated liberal give-away programs.

There are funds. If we give in to the toll funds, they’ll use those for other purposes as well. It’s time to put our foot down and demand some fiscal responibility.

[DoughtyOne]

Yes, there has been one roadway that I am aware of. There may be another I wasn’t aware of.

Did you know the Golden Gate bridge was paid off something like forty years ago? I don’t remember exactly when, but that’s the way it goes.

We start paying and it never ends. They they come back and want even more money. It’s all a big con job.

[2harddrive]

BUT, the gas tax money collected has already been spent.....on AFDC payments to illegal aliens.

[Publius]

In Orange County:

• The HOT lanes in the Riverside Freeway (Route 91)
• The San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor (Route 73)
• Route 133
• The Foothill Corridor (Route 241)
• The Eastern Transportation Corridor (Route 261)

If you check the legislation that created the authority that owns and operates the Golden Gate Bridge, you'll find that it is authorized to exist in perpetuity with no obligation to go out of business when that bridge, or any other bridge it has built, is "paid off".

[Publius]

In Orange County:

• The HOT lanes in the Riverside Freeway (Route 91)
• The San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor (Route 73)
• Route 133
• The Foothill Corridor (Route 241)
• The Eastern Transportation Corridor (Route 261)

If you check the legislation that created the authority that owns and operates the Golden Gate Bridge, you'll find that it is authorized to exist in perpetuity with no obligation to go out of business when that bridge, or any other bridge it has built, is "paid off".

[MaxMax]

It's a FEE, not a TAX. Soon this will be spun into "For the CHEELDREN".

There should be a boycott where everyone in Houston drives the Tollway
without paying the toll. Express toll lane to be specific.

It's a TAXWAY, not a TOLLWAY!

[DoughtyOne]

Does that make it right? “Legal” isn’t the proof of that.

[Publius]

Most states have either constitutional or statutory restrictions on the use of gas tax money. This is because of the work of the Better Roads Movement in the years after World War I.

For example, here in Washington state, the 18th Amendment to the state constitution requires that gas tax money be used for highways or car ferries. Not a penny of it is used for rail, bike paths, the ports or anything else.

[DoughtyOne]

I share your sentiment...

[Publius]

"Right" and "wrong" are not meaningful concepts here.

If you want to know where this is going, note that Oregon and Massachusetts are looking at following Singapore and London by installing transponders in cars so that you will be charged for the use of any and all highways the minute you leave your driveway. In return, they will repeal the gas tax for residents who have the transponders.

For a humorous look at this, check out TANSTAAFL: A (Semi-)Satirical Look at a World Without Transportation Subsidies.

[Radix]

"Texas is going to go Democratic soon if the Republican officials there don’t get their sh!t together."

 

I think that it was David who incurred a certain portion of the wrath of God when he (David) commenced to have a census done.

 

Politicians have come to the place where they believe polls (census) before they believe in the will of folks who actually vote.

 

Their folly, is inevitably going to lead to the demise of our American culture, and probably all of our very lives.

[DoughtyOne]

Tell me what the transponder will be that the gas tax isn’t. Seems like a shell game to me.

[Publius]

Read the essay. It’s all there, and in a humorous vein.

[DoughtyOne]

Thank you. I will. I appreciate the link too.

[jws3sticks]

Here in Michigan, when you head out of the state, you pay the heavy toll for all of the history you are leaving. When you head into the state, you get paid progressively, the further into the state you get. When you get to Midland, you get the grand prize.