Quote:
Originally Posted by kingkilburn
As for the taxation issue. I think it should be %100 done in paying to register your vehicle. After that the government is just butting into your personal life. Why should they get an extra tax on top of the sales tax?
|
Registration is a State issue, not Federal. Unless you want a Federal registration, the gas tax is the way Federal highway maintenance is financed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HalveBlue
I was always under the impression that most road damage is caused by the perpetual heating-and-cooling cycle that paved surfaces go through, not the weight or amount of cars (sans heavy, tracked vehicles, like a tank. Those'll tear up roads quickly).
|
You should see the roads in the office park I work in. Swift Trucking built a transfer facility here, and so there are Swift trucks constantly coming and going. You can tell see which roads and intersections they use the most, the curbs are crumbling, the pavement is rippling, etc. In the US, a semi can weigh as much as 80,000 pounds, so it is stressing the roads a lot more than a 4000 pound car. Of course, weather plays a role as well, but there is not much we can do about that. Weather will buckle roads whether or not they are ever driven on. But heavy trucks driving over it can and will accelerate that wear.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheWolf
The BART is a money looser and always has been. It's supported by property taxes, not by the minuscule "fee" people pay to ride it.
|
The Federal Highway System is a money loser too, that doesn't mean we should get rid of it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ayuaddict
Let's take Japan for example, it is seriously like ten times more expensive to drive out there. Registration, tolls and gasoline are all considerably more expensive.
Roads are beautiful.
Awesome public transportation.
Where are all the fat people?
I'll vote yes.
|
Japan is only the size of California, with 150 million people. It is a lot easier to finance road construction and maintenance and public transit construction when you have so many fewer miles to build. The cost/person is greatly reduced.
Quote:
Originally Posted by S14DB
The Federal Gasoline tax is 18.4¢/gal and Diesel fuel is 24.4¢/gal. So, it is already "raised." Most states have higher taxes on Diesel fuel compared to Gasoline. Some even tax commercial drivers for gas used in the state even if they didn't buy it in the state.
|
Yes, diesel tax is higher than gasoline, but it is still at the same level as 1993. Highway funding has been declining every year for 18 years due to inflation. The tax should be indexed to inflation and adjusted every few years, not every few decades. The infrastructure maintenance in this country is abysmal.
Quote:
Originally Posted by S14DB
Quote:
|
Then-Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters stated on August 15, 2007 that about 60% of federal gas taxes are used for highway and bridge construction. The remaining 40% goes to earmarked programs. However, revenues from other taxes are also used in federal transportation programs.
|
Quote:
GWEN IFILL: Where is the money going instead?
MARY PETERS: Well, it's going into earmarks; it's going into special programs.
GWEN IFILL: Explain what you mean when you say earmarks.
MARY PETERS: Well, an earmark is a project that's designated by a member of Congress specifically to a project generally in his or her district or state. And the level of earmarking has increased substantially over the last couple of decades in terms of the highway bill. The last highway bill that was passed, in the summer of 2005, contained over 6,000 of those marks, those specially designated projects. And the cost of those projects just in that bill alone was $24 billion, almost a tenth of the bill.
GWEN IFILL: Aren't many of those projects, even though they're special interest projects, aren't they roads and bridges, often?
MARY PETERS: Gwen, some of them are, but many of them are not. There are museums that are being built with that money, bike paths, trails, repairing lighthouses. Those are some of the kind of things that that money is being spent on, as opposed to our infrastructure.
|
Got to love Congress. Robing Peter to pay for Paul's Museum.
|
Those 2 quotes are rather conflicting. One states that 40% of the transportation bill is earmarks, the other says that it is less than 10%, that's a big difference. But the issue of earmarking is separate. On one hand, seeing senators trying to secure money for a 'bridge-to-nowhere' seems outrageous, but on the other hand, you want your own senators and representatives working to improve the infrastructure in your own state. How to balance that issue is the key, but really a different topic of discussion.
Another thing to note, bike paths and trails are transportation infrastructure. They may not carry cars, but that doesn't mean they don't serve a useful purpose for the community while still falling under the 'transportation' umbrella. Museums and lighthouses are a bit of a stretch, and ideally, you would see congress reject those types of amendments, but it isn't a perfect system. All told, though, I would bet these museum and lighthouse projects, bike paths and trails, etc, are a tiny, tiny portion of the transportation budget.