Posted on 07/22/2002 7:43:08 AM PDT by vannrox
Traffic accidents are the leading cause of death for Americans age 6 to 28 and result in more permanent disabling injuries than any other type of accident. This serious public health situation could become even worse if several proposals recently floated on Capitol Hill ever become law.
The price of gasoline has been climbing steadily in recent weeks and could go even higher before the summer travel season ends. It is well understood that the price increase is due to a shortage of refinery capacity in the United States, the seasonal changeover to cleaner gasoline and distribution limitations. These are problems that can only be solved by building new refinery capacity and increasing the supply of gasoline.
Nevertheless, there are some special interest groups and members of Congress calling for a suspension or repeal of all or part of the 18.3 cents-per-gallon federal gasoline tax as the solution to the current situation. The simple fact is that the gas tax-unchanged since 1993-has nothing to do with the current prices that consumers are experiencing at the pump.
There is also no guarantee that a gas tax cut would even be passed onto consumers. Both Indiana and Illinois temporarily repealed their state sales tax on gasoline purchases last summer in response to increasing motor fuel prices. The result? The average price of gasoline in both states continued to increase during the period the tax cuts were in place-about 20 cents per gallon. The move also reduced revenue to the Indiana and Illinois state governments by about the equivalent of seven cents per gallon.
One thing is certain, however, if we suspend or repeal the federal gas tax. All 50 states would experience a dramatic decrease in federal highway funding. An American Road & Transportation Builders Association analysis found that a six-month suspension of the entire federal gas tax would cost states $12 billion in federal highway investment. The proposal to repeal 4.3 cents-per-gallon of the federal gas tax would cut revenues by more than $5.5 billion annually.
Reducing or repealing the federal gas tax-the source of 43 percent of all highway capital improvement funding in the U.S.-would delay urgently needed road improvement projects, threaten safety and rob the nation of air quality benefits that accrue from less congested and well maintained roads.
America can't afford to cut back on highway investment. A recent U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) report says that a 50 percent increase in highway investment would be needed just to maintain current congestion and travel times, let alone make any improvements. The USDOT also says that poor road conditions or outdated alignments are a factor in 15,000 U.S. road-related fatalities each year. Cutting the federal highway user fee could make this problem more severe.
Over the past 50 years, every $1 billion invested by the public in road improvements has helped prevent 1,400 premature deaths and nearly 50,000 injuries. This has saved American society over $2 billion in health care, insurance, lost wages and productivity costs. Cutting the gas tax would also jeopardize this public health return from investment in transportation.
If the federal gas tax is repealed or reduced, we will face increased risks on the roads we travel every day. Without this revenue, our roads will be more congested and less safe-for everyone.
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John Wight is 2001 chairman of the American Road & Transportation Builders Association and executive vice president of HNTB Corporation in Fairfield, N.J.
As Mr. Brown used to joking say to us neighborhood kids, "Which do you want, a fat lip or a busted eyebrow." That was not lost on me. From Democrats you get one, from Republicans you get the other. Voting for the lesser of evils still begets evil.
The Genie is Out of the Bottle
Congress has created so many laws that virtually every person is assured of breaking more than just traffic laws. Surely with all this supposed lawlessness people and society should have long ago run head long into destruction. But it has not.
Instead, people and society have progressively prospered. Doing so despite politicians creating on average, 3,000 new laws each year which self-serving alphabet-agency bureaucrats implement/utilize to justify their usurped power and unearned paychecks. They both proclaim from on high -- with complicit endorsement from the media and academia -- that all those laws are "must-have" laws to thwart people and society from running headlong into self-destruction.
Again, despite not having this year's 3,000 must-have laws people and society increased prosperity for years and decades prior. How can it be that suddenly the people and the society they form has managed to be so prosperous for so long but suddenly they will run such great risk of destroying their self-created prosperity?
The government is the all time champion of cooking the books and it has the gall to point fingers at the whole business community because of a few bad apples. The entire business community and employees that support it should stand tall against a government feigning to protect the little guy from organizations that cook their books.
If there was ever a prime example of the fox guarding the hen house it is the government claiming to protect the little guy from organizations that cook their books. President Bush will have to militarily smash down terrorism. For that is his job. It's not the President's, congress' or the government's job to manipulate the economy.
The business community with their employees will have to stand tall against the PC-status-quo fox -- self-proclaimed authorities claiming/feigning they'll use the government to protect the little guy and a complicit media and academia that supports them; for they are all the fox -- to regain their rightful place as the champions of honest business that has always increased the well-being of people.
The government, having already manipulated the economy to almost no-end, President Bush can play the unbeatable five-ace hand of replacing the threat-of-force IRS and graduated income tax with a don't-pay-the-tax-if-you-don't-want-to consumption tax. For example, implement the proposed national retail sales tax (NRST). Not only would that win votes for Bush and republicans in congress it would boom the economy.
Where will it lead?
War of Two Worlds
Value Creators versus Value Destroyers
Politics is not the solution. It's the problem!
The first thing civilization must have is business/science. It's what the family needs so that its members can live creative, productive, happy lives. Business/science can survive, even thrive without government/bureaucracy.
Government/bureaucracy cannot survive without business/science. In general, business/science and family is the host and government/bureaucracy is a parasite.
Aside from that, keep valid government services that protect individual rights and property. Military defense, FBI, CIA, police and courts. With the rest of government striped away those few valid services would be several fold more efficient and effective than they are today.
Underwriters Laboratory is a private sector business that has to compete in a capitalist market. Underwriters laboratory is a good example of success where government fails.
Any government agency that is a value to the people and society -- which there are but a few -- could better serve the people by being in the private sector where competition demands maximum performance.
Wake up! They are the parasites. We are the host. We don't need them. They need us.
* * *
After all, in calling for the resignation of Securities and Exchange Commissioner Harvey Pitt, McCain declares, “Government’s demands for corporate accountability are only credible if government executives are held accountable as well." Does that mean U.S. senators? Congress, Accounting, and the Free Market (McCain is grandstanding again)
"Too often, we have cooked the books, exploited off-balance sheet accounting, fudged budget numbers and failed to disclose fully the nation's assets and liabilities. If we in Washington are to have credibility in the public eye as we address the corporate accounting mess, we must reform our own fiscal practices," said McCain. Social Security Called A Bigger Fraud Than Corporate Scandals
Prove it first. It's not like it's a new discovery or problem. It's a seventy-year-old problem. It's just that now politicians and bureaucrats have trapped themselves and the general public is becoming increasingly aware. They've been caught and McCain is getting interview time to peddle gussied-up compassionate government.
"Allowing Americans to invest responsibly a small part of their payroll taxes will not only save Social Security, but will provide them with greater retirement income than those who no or will soon depend on Social Security checks," said McCain. Social Security Called A Bigger Fraud Than Corporate Scandals
Notice McCain so readily self-proclaims himself and government the authority to allow Americans to invest part of their own money. But he has a condition; it most be done responsibly. And who decides what is responsible? Certainly not the all-time champion, cook-the-books bureaucrats and snake-oil-salesmen politicians.
They -- self-proclaimed authorities -- are running citizens and society headlong into destruction.
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