Last month, the Eno Center for Transportation proposed to abolish the gas tax, and the Antiplanner panned the idea. This week, the Wall Street Journal proposes abolish the gas tax, and the Antiplanner thinks it may be right.
The difference is that Eno wanted to replace the gas tax with federal transportation spending out of general funds in a deliberate effort to make transportation even more politicized than it is today. The Journal, on the other hand, wants to de-politicize highway spending.
The problem is that the Journal never actually says what it proposes to do instead of the gas tax. Reading between the lines, what the Journal is really proposing is to abolish the federal gas tax, while letting states fund highways out of gas taxes, tolls, mileage-based user fees, or whatever fees work best in each state. Too bad it didn’t bother to make the case for that, or even explain it.
Not ALL the viagra online cheapest pieces; just the one that is not the case. Pradeep’s Trimex downtownsault.org generico levitra on line Group is a business house of minerals. The solution is uncommonly intended for guys; cialis sale so women ought not to take this drug. After winning their division, they were easily defeated in the mlb jerseys for sale League Championship Series by the Pittsburgh Pirates and Roberto Clemente, who then went on downtownsault.org order viagra to beat the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series. The case for such a plan is strong, though a lot of people inside the beltway can’t see it. Some argue that a federal highway fund is needed to even out spending among the states. But, as the Journal itself points out, federal highway funds currently take from poor states and give to wealthier states (which is what always happens when politicians impose a tax on equity grounds).
Others say that without a federal tax, we couldn’t have built the Interstate Highway System. In fact, the states were well on their way to building such a system on their own using tolls and other user fees. The federal tax may have hastened it a bit, and it certainly led to consistent design standards across the continent, but it also may have overbuilt in some areas. Remember the great freeway debates in which city officials whose predecessors demanded that federal funds be used to build urban highways turned around and blamed the feds for building roads that supposedly destroyed their cities?
Today, too much of the federal tax is being spent on pointless things like rail transit, complete streets, and endless studies. While very lucrative for consulting firms, this spending provides little in the way of transportation and mobility. The states are better off without the federal money and (as the Journal notes) all of the strings that come attached to it.
The other problem is that, not only does the Journal fail to sketch out an alternative to the federal gas tax, it fails to describe a political path that can lead to that alternative. It may not be possible to completely abolish the gas tax in this Congress, but it might be possible to pass a bill that can lead to abolition in the next. But it is also possible to pass a bill that can make abolition more difficult later. Unless we think about that path, it does little good to grab a banner and yell, “Abolish the gas tax!”
A society that values private property would not tax, as taxation is a violation of private property rights. All taxation should be replaced with user fees, lotteries, and/or endowments/general donations.
How is it again, Frank, that “user fees” (sic) would pay for such things as national defense, the police and fire? The 19th Century practice of private fire departments is not reassuring.
BTW, “private property” cannot exist without some form of government. Your local county recorder is a vital tool for noting who owns what “legally” and you can always call the sheriff to force trespassers off your property. Ultimately private property and many other things are backed up by force, e.g., men with guns. If they want to avoid resistance, some form of legitimacy is required.
And no matter how corrupt or inefficient democratic government may be, most people would rather suffer it than self appointed private mafias including privately-owned governments, otherwise known as dictatorships, “Islamic Republics” (sic) and other such ilk. Any system of governance is always a balance between the requirements of society as a whole and the desires and rights of individuals; your bad experiences as a teacher had caused you to go off the deep end against bureaucracies whose goals have been shifted to benefit private interests, as opposed to the public interest of good education.
As Winston Churchill once opined (paraphrased), democracy is the worst form of government except for the alternatives.
BTW, in advance, f— off, Metrof–cks.
BTW, in advance, f— off, Metrof–cks.
I’d say the same to you, Michael Setty, but you’ve probably already fingered yourself this morning.
If taxation without consent is robbery, the United States government has never had, has not now, and is never likely to have, a single honest dollar in its treasury. If taxation without consent is not robbery, then any band of robbers have only to declare themselves a government, and all their robberies are legalized.
Lysander Spooner
I don’t think you are correct that the interstate highway could have been built with tolls and the states own resources. It had been proposed for 25 years at least before 1956 and failed to seriously progress until a formula was devised to share the financial burden in such a way that rural states were subsidized by the more urban.
A few years ago Vermont looked at tolls and found they wouldn’t even cover the cost of collection (this was in the age of staffed toll booths. Not sure how that would be today).
I do not know if the need to subsidize the rural states in order to build the system applies now to maintain it. I wouldn’t think so.
“The Journal, on the other hand, wants to de-politicize highway spending…” by “letting states fund highways out of gas taxes, tolls, mileage-based user fees, or whatever fees work best in each state.”
Right, because that wouldn’t involve politics at all.