I65/70 Toll road proposal??

[IndyDave1776]

tax the trains, their increased use is decreasing the gas tax on freight haulers. yes, purple.

You're laughing, but this did in fact happen, only the other way around. When the Clinton administration got the brilliant idea that everybody needed to use trains, they started diverting taxes on trucks off of highways and giving it to the railroads.

 

[CHCRandy]

Also from what it looks like this proposal includes a gas tax hike and cigarette tax hike...

Yeah, I can maybe see .04 a gallon fuel tax increase.......but .99 more on a pack of smokes is silly! What the hell does smoking have to do with roads......you already can't even flip a butt out the window? I have been all over my local rep. about this. They want to do something noble they should tax alcohol more. A case of beer has .20 cents tax, a gallon of whiskey has $2.68 tax......I am no Harvard scholar, but I am pretty sure that gallon of whiskey or 20 cases of beer causes more problems in society and carnage on our roads then 20 cigarettes! Think how much law abiding citizens pay for police to do nothing but look for drunk drivers on our ROADS. Think how many families are broken by booze. Think how many people have kidney and liver problems...not to mention psychological problems...over alcohol. Think of parents who bury kids because of drunk driving...and even innocent families that are destroyed by a drunk driver killing their kids, moms, dads, brothers.......if anything should be taxed more, it is alcohol!

In 2011 the state took in $850,000,000 a year in fuel tax. $478,000,000 in Tobacco tax.....and a whopping $43,000,000 in alcohol taxes. And for 2015 them numbers are still about the same. I dont see where they are taking in any less.

 

[steveh_131]

Using taxes for social engineering is never a good idea.

Bullet tax, anybody?

 

[IndyDave1776]

Yeah, I can maybe see .04 a gallon fuel tax increase.......but .99 more on a pack of smokes is silly! What the hell does smoking have to do with roads......you already can't even flip a butt out the window? I have been all over my local rep. about this. They want to do something noble they should tax alcohol more. A case of beer has .20 cents tax, a gallon of whiskey has $2.68 tax......I am no Harvard scholar, but I am pretty sure that gallon of whiskey or 20 cases of beer causes more problems in society and carnage on our roads then 20 cigarettes! Think how much law abiding citizens pay for police to do nothing but look for drunk drivers on our ROADS. Think how many families are broken by booze. Think how many people have kidney and liver problems...not to mention psychological problems...over alcohol. Think of parents who bury kids because of drunk driving...and even innocent families that are destroyed by a drunk driver killing their kids, moms, dads, brothers.......if anything should be taxed more, it is alcohol!

In 2011 the state took in $850,000,000 a year in fuel tax. $478,000,000 in Tobacco tax.....and a whopping $43,000,000 in alcohol taxes. And for 2015 them numbers are still about the same. I dont see where they are taking in any less.

Once again, why are we talking about more taxes before we address the fact that they are pissing away tons of money, and without that problem, we would not be having this discussion?

 

[Tooms]

I have no fundamental objection to either being a toll road. My objection is to the government mismanagement this will encourage. Even with tolls the politicians will claim there is never "enough" money to maintain these roads and constantly jack up the prices.
Now, if there were an annual public audit of the toll roads, and tolls were adjusted to levels adequate to maintain those roads, it'd be great.
Say what you want about Illinois (they suck) their toll roads are well-maintained and constantly being improved and during the winter there is no shortage of salt being laid down.

I agree with this. I'm not against a toll road. The mismanagement of money that would follow is most concerning.

 

[IndyDave1776]

I agree with this. I'm not against a toll road. The mismanagement of money that would follow is most concerning.

If we didn't have a mismanagement of money problem, we wouldn't have a situation in which a toll road would even come up for discussion. Above and beyond this, I, for one, don't like getting double-dipped.

 

[steveh_131]

No matter what they claim the toll is going to be, they WILL raise it and it will NEVER go away.

Every dime that you tax out of truckers contributes to inflation.

Taxing things you don't like is tyranny.

If the government can't perform one of its most basic functions with the obscene taxes that it takes in, then it's time to prioritize. Plain and simple.

 

[IndyDave1776]

No matter what they claim the toll is going to be, they WILL raise it and it will NEVER go away.

Every dime that you tax out of truckers contributes to inflation.

Taxing things you don't like is tyranny.

If the government can't perform one of its most basic functions with the obscene taxes that it takes in, then it's time to prioritize. Plain and simple.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to steveh_131 again.

.

 

[jbombelli]

Didn't they learn their lesson from the last tollway they lost money on?

Oh wait... This is government we're talking about. The only lesson they ever learn is that they need more money from the taxpayers.

 

[IndyDave1776]

Didn't they learn their lesson from the last tollway they lost money on?

Oh wait... This is government we're talking about. The only lesson they ever learn is that they need more money from the taxpayers.

They stand in evidence that people who are too stupid to live shouldn't, and wouldn't if we would stop subsidizing them.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

My recollection is that "infrastructure" wasn't that big of an issue until that bridge problem happened, up near Lafeyette last year. Then the democrats, sniffing another opprtunity to critisize Pence's administration, jumped on this as another campaign issue. Now that it is, we'll see who can figure out how to pay for it and maximize political leverage.

 

[CHCRandy]

Once again, why are we talking about more taxes before we address the fact that they are pissing away tons of money, and without that problem, we would not be having this discussion?

They have been pissing money away for 40 years....that's nothing new nor nothing we can easily change. Remember how old Mitch sold our road and said it would fund our roads for years and years to come? Remember how the Lottery was suppose to pay book rental, schools and road repairs? The last time they doubled tobacco taxes, 75% of the population was all for "punishing" the nasty smokers. Non smokers have sit back and snickered as smokers have gotten the shaft. But when you mention taxing the 75% that drink, or the 75% who drive........it hits the fan. I am glad they grouped tobacco with road tax........because the people raising heck about the .04 may save smokers from the .99 increase. In other words...the smokers would get shafted again...unless the road tax complainers save us.

So now that we acknowledge they are pissing money away......what can we do about it?

 

[IndyDave1776]

They have been pissing money away for 40 years....that's nothing new nor nothing we can easily change. Remember how old Mitch sold our road and said it would fund our roads for years and years to come? Remember how the Lottery was suppose to pay book rental, schools and road repairs? The last time they doubled tobacco taxes, 75% of the population was all for "punishing" the nasty smokers. Non smokers have sit back and snickered as smokers have gotten the shaft. But when you mention taxing the 75% that drink, or the 75% who drive........it hits the fan. I am glad they grouped tobacco with road tax........because the people raising heck about the .04 may save smokers from the .99 increase. In other words...the smokers would get shafted again...unless the road tax complainers save us.

So now that we acknowledge they are pissing money away......what can we do about it?

First, you appear to be accepting the paradigm that the government wasting our money is acceptable. That is the problem. It was a problem 50 years ago. It is a problem today. The answer is always the same--more taxes, so the idiots can waste more money. There is no more. Even a good mobster knows that there is a point where you can squeeze someone only so hard before you crush them and kill your golden goose.

Second, how is it acceptable to tax any product or activity with the proceeds earmarked for an unrelated expense? Why should a person have to pay a disproportionate amount of the cost for roads because he also smokes, drinks, or eats jelly beans? Just for the record, I do not smoke and do not drink. I do not consider it acceptable that tobacco products are multiplied something on the order of 4 times by taxation. My opinion, my considering it a 'nasty' habit, and my belief that it is bad for you are all irrelevant. The answer to this problem is to solve the problem, not to kick someone else in the nuts because you are getting kicked in the nuts.

Third, it is easy to throw your hands up in the air and say that there is nothing that can be done about the state pissing our money away. Guess what! The problem won't get solved without solving it. If you just keep looking for other people to throw under the tax bus, the monster is just going to keep getting bigger and more wasteful. I will grant you that there are some days I don't see any solution this side of five-stranded hemp rope, but that doesn't mean that I am going to sit back and accept the idea and willfully participate in finding more people to f*ck over in preference to at least trying to do the right thing.

 

[MuttX7]

Can anyone post a link as to where the fuel taxes are spent now? A couple of stories I have read said that Pence wants to revert some of the money spent elsewhere back to maintenance. This wouldn't cover all of the money needed to fix the problem but I am just curious as to where money they should have already been using to fix the roads has been going.

 

[Hoosierkav]

I'd love to see an accounting for all these various "these monies will be placed in an account to be used for...". If $3 bazillion has been supposedly collected, $3 bazillion should be spent before we start talking about doing more nickle and diming.

Of course, we could build them to last--seems a bit silly that either they're made sub-standard as IndyDave mentioned, or they're simply built to last 10 years instead of 20, simply to lower the (initial) cost (read, to sell the project to the taxpayers).

We could, also, maybe, look at improving our mass transit systems and decrease some of the wear and tear. Maybe.

 

[Bigtanker]

No way...tax the freight haulers and leave the 4 wheelers alone.

The trucking industry is in business to make money. When the cost of thier business goes up, they pass that cost on to you by charging more to haul the same load. That increases the cost to the shipper and thus makes EVERYTHING you buy go up in cost.

The money taken in for roads needs to be spent on roads. Not schools, parks, or stadiums.

 

[BugI02]

Ahem. Uhhh .... Dave .... about the disparate impact of vehicle weights....

http://facweb.knowlton.ohio-state.edu/pviton/courses2/crp776/776-roads-handout.pdf

 

[IndyDave1776]

Another thing to consider is that Pence has a huge railroad fettish. My guess is that he has received a lot of railroad money, but that is just conjecture. I would say that this sword cuts both ways and in order to understand it, we would have to start from the beginning.

At one time, most long distance freight was moved on rails. One grandfather worked on a rail maintenance crew in his younger days and his neighbor in later years retired as an engineer (i.e., driving a train). What I drew from their stories is that 60 years ago, a train was expected to run SMOOTHLY at 100 miles per hour. If the rails were not maintained to support that, the crew supervisor would be summarily fired and replaced. Most truck transport was from the rail head to the final destination. As the railroads became less efficient, slower, and more indifferent about customer needs (hand in hand with consolidations and a significant drop in the number of railroads, imagine that) we saw the advent of cross-country trucking, with a strong and early presence in refrigerated freight that the railroads became notorious for delivering late, hence spoiled, or losing altogether. Maintenance continued to decline to the point that Don told me that he couldn't run a train over 45 mph without bouncing it off of the track. Customer service wasn't even a consideration. Trucks took over by virtue of getting the job done in spite of a significant penalty in technical efficiency. This lead to the decline of the railroads into near irrelevance.

Drumroll, Hail to the Chief, here comes Billy Jeff. With a significant amount of highway tax money diverted to the railroads, the comeback seemed to take root at the expense of money that SHOULD have been used for maintaining highways. Now, we are at the point that railroads are significantly revived even though the method of doing so was absolutely unacceptable. I do not see a return to their former position for two reasons. First, I don't think that the RR will ever be able to deal effectively with time-sensitive work. Even if they can move produce without ruining it outright, the additional handling time will cut significantly into the shelf life. Second, we have a much stronger attitude toward demanding immediate gratification rather than the understanding of working with realistic lead times than we did 50 years ago. Of course, there is always the problem that existed from day one which is that the RR cannot deliver to your door.

That said, I don't think it is going to help us at all with our highway issues that Pence would appear to see the solution not in solving the problem but in transferring the freight elsewhere.

 

[SumtnFancy]

All i have read here is that cars want truckers taxed, truckers want cars taxed, smokers want drinkers taxed, drinkers want smokers taxed. The poor want the rich taxed, the rich want the middle class taxed. Maybe time for a flat tax?

Maybe budget oversight? My local representative has 4 offices. Four. Each staffed, furnished, equiped with amenities and utilities. You can only be at 1 office at a time. Maybe if we could cut the bloated budgets we wouldn't need new taxes.

 

[bwframe]

...I say no more toll roads and no more taxes. Tighten up the budget and get it done. We are taxed enough.

No matter what they claim the toll is going to be, they WILL raise it and it will NEVER go away.

Every dime that you tax out of truckers contributes to inflation.

Taxing things you don't like is tyranny.

If the government can't perform one of its most basic functions with the obscene taxes that it takes in, then it's time to prioritize. Plain and simple.

This right here ^^^. Live within our means, trim some fat.

Taxed Enough Already. Seems as if I heard that elsewhere?