Highways in France absolutely do not “pay for themselves” as so casually posited by this Cato article, I’m amazed the CATO people let this slip in to the article, because it was from the CATO Institute I learned about the failures of the European highway and gas tax systems(back when Italy tried to forcefully require all commercial vehicles to use an EZPass equivalent).
So color me confused.
For what it is worth, Mr. O'Toole was correct about this with respect to Japan; in fact, the excess taxes and fees from the Japanese highway system were going into the general revenue. (These excesses may not continue as reductions are made in these assessments.)