Government should stay out of the road building business.
Governments can’t do anything efficiently, so they are most likely going to totally screw up the road building business.
Even if other countries seem to do fine having governments build their roads, the US is not like other countries and you cannot make comparisons.
A private road building company would have trouble against a government competitor that’s cheerfully operating at a loss for decade after decade after decade. The private companies would go out of business.
If governments built the roads, we would have to fill out endless forms whenever we wanted to drive anywhere.
How much will it cost to have government build the roads rather than private business? It might be more. This should be analysed much, much more thoroughly before any steps are taken.
In Canada, the roads are all terrible and dangerous. Everyone has heard a complaint on this board about poor road conditions in Canada. Therefore, government roads are dangerous.
Our access to roads will be rationed.
Having government build roads is a socialist idea. Once we start with this, we will soon be nothing but a bunch of communist hippie facists.
The government has no business telling me where and when I can drive.
Did I mention socialism? It’s bad.
I might have to pay more taxes at some time in the future if my plans come to fruition, and I am making more than $250,000/year as I plan to. Because I’m hard working.
Government roads must be paid for by taxes. Taxes are high enough already. In fact, taxes are theft.
I don’t use the roads, so it is unfair asking me to pay for them through taxes.
You forgot the most important point: if governments control the roads, they will convene death panels (aka local transportation planning commissions) to figure out how to kill old drivers.
I know this is a riff on health care, but I am a little confused. I thought roads in the US were built with taxpayer money, right? I remember reading about how the federal government was going to withhold money from states that didn’t change the minimum drinking age. I’m asking this because when I was on vacation in Washington state, the highways were awesome. My family was amazed at how good they were.
I drive on toll roads that were built by private entities (with government approval, of course).
The local public university allowed private contractors to build the dorms, in exchange for an exclusive deal on the dorm rents for a period of years.
The final couple of miles of roads to my place in Montana and my place in San Diego in are private, and better sloped and designed than the county roads.
That all said, the analogy is weak. Roads, due to the nature of land ownership and emminent domain, do not equate to a decent health care analogy.
You just THOUGHT they were awesome. Your memory is playing tricks with you my young friend. Or are you a friend at all? You’re not a socialist are you?
People who are idealistically opposed to a public option for health care aren’t going to be persuaded by any metaphors using something else the government provides.
In any case, the vast majority of opposition to the current, proposed health care reform is almost entirely partisan.
The Golden Gate Bridge, which is private, costs more than the Bay Bridge, the public option. The public option should put the private one out of business any decade now.
Either you’re trying to argue that a public option really doesn’t kill private enterprise and therefore those who say it will are nuts, or you’re making the abyssimally bad argument that because private industry is not killed by a public option, that that somehow means that a public option doesn’t have a place in the world. Which is it?
Why not? Which aspect of the anti-health care arguments is stymied by the nature of nature of land ownership and emminent domain?
In my experience western roads are in much better shape overall than eastern roads. I’m basing this on Illinois and Ohio roads compared to states like Arizona and Colorado. I guess it’s a combination of newer infrastructure, and less traffic.
I thought the GGB cost more (I assume you’re talking about the toll?) because it was coming from ultra-wealthy Marin County, while the Bay Bridge was coming from Oakland.
But the Richmond San Rafael bridge also goes to the land of the quiche eaters and costs less. Not to mention that the Bay Bridge comes out close to Berkeley, which no doubt explains why it is socialist.
Other reasons include slightly less atrocious winter weather (depending on altitude), and the non-use of salt in favor of less destructive and more environmentally-friendly materials.
Governments don’t build roads. The Federal government provides funds to the state, and the states contract out to private businesses. Thus, your analogy is inapt inasmuch as that’s how the health care system more or less works now, with lots of private vendors that the government (or its customers) pays when treatment is necessary, and hideously expensive for much the same reason.
