Not in my city. Nor in my county. The county spent $40M on roads last year, 0% from the feds.
Please stop posting false information.
nate - Economists like to emphasize that conceptually you can combine a regressive tax with another tax or program to make the proposal less regressive, neutral or even progressive when taken as a whole. Furthermore politicians do exactly this sort of thing all the time, in a rough way.
Admittedly, Krauthammer only really hits the top end of the scale: payroll is flat, then turns regressive in upper incomes since the marginal payroll tax drops to zero above I think $250,000. But I wanted to drive home the general concept.
Since we tax greenhouse emissions at zero, they are not incorporated directly into any person’s or any company’s budget process. That’s wrong. It’s analogous to subsidizing bread so that it’s a nickel per loaf (and in practice using the processed result as animal feed) or organizing a nationwide open bar. Inefficient and harmful.
That’s rather bold. How are we supposed to know you’re not the one with false information.
He made the claim that “virtually all” road projects are financed by the feds. Not true. And it’s up to him to demonstrate otherwise.
The claim:
I see the word “Major” in that sentence. I have not seen a counterexample posted in this thread.
Once again, we don’t need to provide a counterexample. He needs to prove his claim.
And we’re specifically discussing HTF money, not just any federal funding.
Would it be too invasive to ask which county you live in so those who feel inclined could check your claim? I would ask the same of Boblibdem, which state he works for.
So you retract the allegation of false information. To support that you would need a counterexample - which shouldn’t be too hard insofar as the claim was sweeping. Right?
All to the good.
Once government gets a hold of a revenue stream you dont know where they will spend it.
To everyone who opposes this on the grounds it’s regressive, remember, Krauthammer’s proposal is to offset the impact by reducing FICA which itself is an extremely regressive tax. So it’s not totally regressive, but it’s still flawed because it’s a flat reduction (if I cut my gas consumption down to a nickel a week, presumably my FICA burden doesn’t approach zero).
And this one of the big problems with wealth inequality in the world… once again it puts hard incentives and difficult choices in front of 99% of the world, while letting the other 1% consume with virtual impunity.
Thread too long, did not read, but skimmed through.
Taxes? Read this about tributes…it has been going on since CaveMan Dave noticed he could intimidate others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tax_resistance
I am against the idea because of the way I feel the current funds, in my state, are mismanaged. I’ve suffered through long commutes on roads that have cost me over $1,000 in front end repairs in a three-year period for being in such horrid states of disrepair, while the state road crews were out repaving roads that had not one damn thing wrong with them.
The pattern I’ve noticed, in what claims to be “liberal” Maine, is that the roads used by the wealthiest people are always in the best shape, whereas the roads used by the working class are always in shitty condition. I can think of no better example than State Route 11 in Augusta. That road is kept in excellent condition near the Capitol, Governor’s mansion, and courthouse, but once you get past where the politicians and lawyers have to drive, to an area of the same town that is quite obviously lower-income, the road turns to shit, and has been shit for many years now.
The gas tax here is far more Dennis Moore than it is Robin Hood.
Perhaps if you did read the thread you’d be able to offer something relevant.
Heh. When I lived in RI, I always used to say you didn’t need a sign at that MA border, since the road conditions told you exactly where the state line was. 
Not sure if things have improved in the last few decades, but it was rather comical back in the day.
Maybe BobLibDem’s state has figured out how to finagle TAP funds into “virtually every major road project.” Granted, the entire program is <$900M for the entire country, so we’re not talking big money.
Hell, you used to be able to tell the Alameda County / Santa Clara county border that way also on 880.
If we can get off the tangent of road funding, let’s look again at what he’s proposing. Raise the gas tax. Count me in. Raise it 50 cents or so. According to the US Energy Information Administration, we use about 134 billion gallons of gasoline in a year. So we can raise around say $65 billion or so if we do this. Put half into infrastructure and then find a way to give relief to low-income motorists, maybe increase the EIC. To simply transfer the tax burden from wage earners to motorists doesn’t seem to have a lot of merit.
Wait a minute. Why did you make the claim that
when it’s untrue?
If the federal gas tax is solely going to be used for what it is used for now, and if the plan isn’t to get rid of it (e.g. if we were just going to let the states take care of the roads), then it makes sense to me to at least index it to inflation.