So, Philo_Narnia you feel there is neither necessity nor purpose nor value to the interstate highway system as it exists now?
Suppose we had not built the interstate highway system. Goods being transported short distances could go in trucks on local roads, but goods being transported long distances would go by train. Likewise, people traveling within their local area could use cars, but people travelling long distances would use trains or planes. The US would need far less gas, so the Iraq war might not have happened. There would be less air pollution. We would probably have better mass transit. And the Feds would have had to find some other way to coerce the states, as there would not be any highway funds to threaten to reduce or withhold.
I don’t think the Federal income tax would be any lower in the alternate America imaged above. They would have been spending it on other things, probably including more money for railroads than we’ve spent in our version of the US. Perhaps the Feds would be threatening to reduce or withhold railroad fund money from the states.
OTOH, perhaps in the absence of Federal action, the states, on their own, might have agreed to cooperate in creating an interstate highway system. They could have worked together to draw up the routes, then each state could have constructed its part of the system.
I think we’ve lost out on an opportunity. If the Federal government had less power over the states, if the states really could chart their own course, think what it would mean. Any one state could pass a law, repeal a law, set up a program, change a program, and the rest of the country could observe the results.
Wisconsin, say, devises a new welfare system. If it works well, other states can copy it, perhaps modifying it to suit their different situation. If it’s a failure, only one state is affected by the failure, and they can, presumably, correct the problem. They can go back to their previous system, or try another experiment.
New Jersey can put a high tax on something, in order to discourage its use. If it works, other states that want to discourage something can follow suit. If it doesn’t work, NJ can repleal the tax and try something else.
California can legalize the medical use of marijuana. The other states can observe the results. If no bad side effects of the change occur, other states can also allow medical use.
People who need to use marijuana medically can move from states where this is forbidden to states where it is allowed. IFor whatever reason, people who think some other state is better governed than their own can either urge their govt officials to change the laws, or they can move to a state whose laws they think better.
Hazel, I agree whole heartedly. Before your post, I never realized the ramifications outside of simply which tax dollars are at stake. Well, maybe the Iraq war scenario was a stretch…
I do, however, think that a highway system would still exist today. The only difference is that it might not be as extensive or advanced as it is today.
Of course, maybe the government would have designed it, and then left it up to the States to figure out how much each state build and fund. Obviously, there are less paved roads in Montana, than say, New York.
Maybe this is the whole problem with Amtrak, and why they have yet to turn a profit and go private.
Trying out a program in one location, observing the results, and terminating it or duplicating it is a strategy that Europe has been doing for decades now. If Belgium institutes a law or program, and it succeeds, it is not long before the rest of the Europe, maybe minus England, has adopted it.
I’m not saying that the States should be a loose collection of Principalities like Europe. But we are called the United States of America, so each state should have more power than their share of the whole. Somewhere in between where we are today, and Europe’s model, is where we really should be.
It’s extortion from the federal government. There is no two ways about it, and it should stop.
Extortion is a crime. Withholding highway funds is not. What’s the debate?
If you want it to stop, change the law. If you don’t have enough support to change the law, then kwitcherbitchen, or at least keep it down to a less annoying whine.
That this argument is ridiculous can be easily seen by observing that it applies to any objectionable law.
Please elaborate on what is ridiculous about this argument. That it applies to any law you object to seems perfectly reasonable to me.
You keep using the word extortion, yet the DUI/Highway funds controversy does not in any way conform to any definition of that word. You want to equate the actions of the federal government with a criminal act, yet you fail to present any statute or constitutional basis for that charge. Put up or shut up, I say.
Let me give you an extreme example: Suppose Congress passes a law requiring that folks of a certain ethnic group be interned. And suppose further that the courts uphold this law. If I’m a member of said ethnic group, it’s reasonable for me to complain that the law is unfair and violates the spirit of the Constitution.
Now Fear Itself wanders along and says “Hey if you don’t like the law, just change it!!”
:rolleyes:
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You show me where I used the word “extortion.”
Put up or shut up.
And by the way, I take it you are abandoning your earlier position about which arguments boil down to “I just don’t like it”?
Yawn. Whenever I can reduce an adversary to using “:rolleyes:” as an argument, I consider the debate over. Check and mate.
I gather you now concede that I never made the “extortion” argument and that your “love it or leave it” argument is silly.
Nice face-saving exit, though. I give it an 8.0 on the face-saving-exit meter.
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Should the federal government have any power over the states actions whatsoever? What gives the federal government the right to enforce its laws within the borders of the states. IF a state decided to intern lucwarm and people like him what gives the federal government the right to gainsay them. If the federal government cannot take any serious action to promote interstate commerce other than saying “pretty please build roads” why should it be able to interfere here in a meaningful way.
If it uses money from other states to pay for law enforcement it is violating those states’ rights to that money. If it is using money from the involved states it is spending that state’s money in contravention to its people’s wishes as expressed through its sovereign legislature. Either way such a gross interference in a sovereign member state’s internal actions is intolerable.
Heck, if these “boncentration bamps” work then other states can try them. If they fail, then other states won’t. Simple enough. Same way it worked with slavery.