Frightening stuff

[Genx87]

They already tax the gas you drive. In a way they are already making you pay as you go. Adding a tracking device doesnt really do much except allow big brotha to track you where before they couldnt.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: Infohawk

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: Infohawk
Tracking devices > polls in terms of traffic alone. It's ten times more efficient.

But what's the penalty for removing a device? I don't want to spend time in jail for wanting to express my right to not have every move monitored.

I guess you could have tolls too. They have them on many European highways... And then you could toll higher at the physical toll stations for the cost of older toll booths and slow-downs in traffic because of the stoppings to pay while the people with electronic tolls would pay a bit less because the upkeep of that polling system would probably be cheaper.

I like electronic tolls. It's quick, you can monitor how much you spend. I even agreed to be tracked at non-poll places to help them the gov. study traffic movement.

There are many areas in the States that have tolls, too. Just look at Central Florida, Chicago, New Jersey, and Houston.

 

[Infohawk]

Originally posted by: Genx87
They already tax the gas you drive. In a way they are already making you pay as you go. Adding a tracking device doesnt really do much except allow big brotha to track you where before they couldnt.

I think the fiscal conservative response would be that gas taxes should go towards the societal costs of gas while taxing highway usage would pay for the highways. It's more efficient to specifically line up government income with expenditures. At the right of the spectrum would be privatizing roads, but that's too radical for most people, dissipate aside.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: Infohawk

Originally posted by: Genx87
They already tax the gas you drive. In a way they are already making you pay as you go. Adding a tracking device doesnt really do much except allow big brotha to track you where before they couldnt.

I think the fiscal conservative response would be that gas taxes should go towards the societal costs of gas while taxing highway usage would pay for the highways. It's more efficient to specifically line up government income with expenditures. At the right of the spectrum would be privatizing roads, but that's too radical for most people, dissipate aside.

State/Counties maintain the roads within their boundaries. State/county gas taxes are supposed to be used for the maintenance of roads (building, repairing, clearing of snow, etc.)

 

[Genx87]

What are the societal costs invovled?

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: Infohawk

Originally posted by: Genx87
They already tax the gas you drive. In a way they are already making you pay as you go. Adding a tracking device doesnt really do much except allow big brotha to track you where before they couldnt.

I think the fiscal conservative response would be that gas taxes should go towards the societal costs of gas while taxing highway usage would pay for the highways. It's more efficient to specifically line up government income with expenditures. At the right of the spectrum would be privatizing roads, but that's too radical for most people, dissipate aside.

How is it "radical" to want to privatatize the roads? Roads are a good, and just like every other good in the economy they have a demand. There is simply absolutely no reason why the government needs to be involved in the production of roads. The idea that if the government did not own and operate roads we would all sit in our houses and wonder how we were ever going to get somewhere is absurd. Some entrepreneur would go out there and figure out a way to make it work. Do I know exactly how private roads would work? No. But no one knew how anything would work before it was put on the free market.

 

[Infohawk]

Originally posted by: Dissipate

Originally posted by: Infohawk

Originally posted by: Genx87
They already tax the gas you drive. In a way they are already making you pay as you go. Adding a tracking device doesnt really do much except allow big brotha to track you where before they couldnt.

I think the fiscal conservative response would be that gas taxes should go towards the societal costs of gas while taxing highway usage would pay for the highways. It's more efficient to specifically line up government income with expenditures. At the right of the spectrum would be privatizing roads, but that's too radical for most people, dissipate aside.

How is it "radical" to want to privatatize the roads? Roads are a good, and just like every other good in the economy they have a demand. There simply absolutely no reason why the government needs to be involved in the production of roads. The idea that if the government did not own and operate roads we would all sit in our houses and wonder how we were ever going to get somewhere is absurd. Some entrepreneur would go out there and figure out a way to make it work. Do I know exactly how private roads would work? No. But no one knew how anything would work before it was put on the free market.

I meant radical in terms of popularity. That's all. I'm not speaking to the merit of the idea.

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: Infohawk

Originally posted by: Dissipate

Originally posted by: Infohawk

Originally posted by: Genx87
They already tax the gas you drive. In a way they are already making you pay as you go. Adding a tracking device doesnt really do much except allow big brotha to track you where before they couldnt.

I think the fiscal conservative response would be that gas taxes should go towards the societal costs of gas while taxing highway usage would pay for the highways. It's more efficient to specifically line up government income with expenditures. At the right of the spectrum would be privatizing roads, but that's too radical for most people, dissipate aside.

How is it "radical" to want to privatatize the roads? Roads are a good, and just like every other good in the economy they have a demand. There simply absolutely no reason why the government needs to be involved in the production of roads. The idea that if the government did not own and operate roads we would all sit in our houses and wonder how we were ever going to get somewhere is absurd. Some entrepreneur would go out there and figure out a way to make it work. Do I know exactly how private roads would work? No. But no one knew how anything would work before it was put on the free market.

I meant radical in terms of popularity. That's all. I'm not speaking to the merit of the idea.

So in that case you are going to join the tax and spend apologists on this issue?

 

[Infohawk]

Originally posted by: Dissipate
So in that case you are going to join the tax and spend apologists on this issue?

Can you be more specific? I think highways should be built by governments by paying for them with income from taxes raised on those very highways.

If highways were privatized, would we have multiple highways running next to each other with competing prices? It seems like you also need the government's power to take private land to built efficient routes.

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: Infohawk

Originally posted by: Dissipate
So in that case you are going to join the tax and spend apologists on this issue?

Can you be more specific? I think highways should be built by governments by paying for them with income from taxes raised on those very highways.

If highways were privatized, would we have multiple highways running next to each other with competing prices? It seems like you also need the government's power to take private land to built efficient routes.

What I was saying is that since you believe that private roads are a political impossibility, you are just going to support a tax and spend scheme.

If highways were privatized, who knows what system we would end up with. Multiple highways running next to each other with competing prices? Sounds great to me! Sign me up!

No, just sell off the existing highways the government has already built.

 

[Infohawk]

No, just sell off the existing highways the government has already built.

Who would build new highways?

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: Infohawk

No, just sell off the existing highways the government has already built.

Who would build new highways?

Entrepreneurs.

 

[Infohawk]

So would you give them power to seize private land? Otherwise you might not get the best routes...

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: Infohawk
So would you give them power to seize private land? Otherwise you might not get the best routes...

No. They would have to build over land that people refused to sell, or tunnel under it. Here is a good debate on this very issue.

 

[Infohawk]

Originally posted by: Dissipate

Originally posted by: Infohawk
So would you give them power to seize private land? Otherwise you might not get the best routes...

No. They would have to build over land, or tunnel under it.

That would still infringe on certain people's property rights... I don't think you can just build a bridge over someone's house. It seems like building highways is something government can do more efficiently. Why didn't industry create the first highways instead of government?

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: Infohawk

Originally posted by: Dissipate

Originally posted by: Infohawk
So would you give them power to seize private land? Otherwise you might not get the best routes...

No. They would have to build over land, or tunnel under it.

That would still infringe on certain people's property rights... I don't think you can just build a bridge over someone's house. It seems like building highways is something government can do more efficiently. Why didn't industry create the first highways instead of government?

No, it would not violate their property rights. People do not own all the space above and below their land. Government cannot build highways more efficiently, it can't build anything more efficiently. Everything built by government is inefficient because resources are allocated by central planners.

I do not know the exact reason why industry did not create the first highways, but I imagine there may not have been enough demand for them to justify it. Governments often overproduce roads and highways.

 

[Infohawk]

Originally posted by: Dissipate

I do not know the exact reason why industry did not create the first highways, but I imagine there may not have been enough demand for them to justify it.

I suggest it's because markets aren't the end-all be-all of societal management. I am open to privatization but I think in certain areas the government can do more or bring certain things to the table that the market can't. There are a lot of good things in history that government has established and that markets have never helped with.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie
This is designed to transfer the tax burden from those who drive larger, less efficient vehicles, to those who drive efficient ones.

Of course large vehicles do more damage to roads than small ones (one would think roughly in proportion to weight, which is roughly in proportion to fuel economy), so folks who normally believe in a strict user-pay philosophy should be outraged by this one.

Not if you scale the tax depending on the class of vehicle.

CsG

True - If they do that then there's really no difference to the current system, except the tradeoff between the lack of privacy, and the removal of 'raod taxes' from gas used in lawnmowers.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: b0mbrman
Ah, good point.

But what about those of us w/2700-lb sports cars that get 18 mpg?

You need to be taxed to pay for repairing all those light-poles!

 

[Infohawk]

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie
This is designed to transfer the tax burden from those who drive larger, less efficient vehicles, to those who drive efficient ones.

Of course large vehicles do more damage to roads than small ones (one would think roughly in proportion to weight, which is roughly in proportion to fuel economy), so folks who normally believe in a strict user-pay philosophy should be outraged by this one.

Not if you scale the tax depending on the class of vehicle.

CsG

True - If they do that then there's really no difference to the current system, except the tradeoff between the lack of privacy, and the removal of 'raod taxes' from gas used in lawnmowers.

When alternative fuel vehicles come more prevalent we would want to tax them too. And gas wouldn't let us do that.

 

[DealMonkey]

The notion has not been endorsed by Schwarzenegger but is gaining acceptance among transportation and budget experts. As Californians drive increasingly more fuel-efficient cars, state officials are alarmed that the gasoline tax will not raise enough money to keep up with road needs.

Well, Arnuld hasn't endorsed it ... yet. IMO this is the stupidest idea yet and an incredible invasion of privacy.

This is also, by the way, the sort of crap that results when a state is too dependent on taxing a negative behavior. In this case, driving too much. Akin to taxes on cigarettes and then freaking out when people start quitting in huge numbers reducing your tax collected.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: Dissipate
No, it would not violate their property rights. People do not own all the space above and below their land.

That depends if they have mining rights.

Also - there was an interesting case of people watching (I believe it was an automobile race) an event at a private facility from the rooves of their houses, which overlooked the facility.

It was determined that these people did not have the right to look through the air above the track, which was not 'on their property'.

Now I thoguht this sounded fishy, but the track was apparently upset that these rooftop vantage points were actually the best seats (not) in the house.

Never-the-less, I can't imagine that you would stand by while someone built an overpass directly oer your house, absolutely destroying it's market value, without compensating you, because 'you don't own the space above your house'. Governments attempting to build highways have needed expropriation (with compensation) laws because they regularly run into people who refuse to part with their land voluntarily, at any price. This phenonmenon isn't going to go away when and if a market controls everything.

If you really think you would be okay with this being done above your house, I'd like to hear why you feel that way.

 

[Kibbo]

I think I'm a genius!! I just thought of a tax that would scale up as you drive more, scale up as your car gets heavier, and isn't as intrusive as having a fvcking homing dvice under your ass:

It's called a gas tax.

 

[Infohawk]

Originally posted by: Kibbo
I think I'm a genius!! I just thought of a tax that would scale up as you drive more, scale up as your car gets heavier, and isn't as intrusive as having a fvcking homing dvice under your ass:

It's called a gas tax.

Other people addressed that and there were responses....

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: Infohawk

Originally posted by: Dissipate

I do not know the exact reason why industry did not create the first highways, but I imagine there may not have been enough demand for them to justify it.

I suggest it's because markets aren't the end-all be-all of societal management. I am open to privatization but I think in certain areas the government can do more or bring certain things to the table that the market can't. There are a lot of good things in history that government has established and that markets have never helped with.

Free markets produce whatever people want them to. If there is a demand, someone will produce the supply. There are no areas where the government can do more to bring things to the table. There are things that the government can produce that the free market would not (i.e. a trip to the moon), but these are things where there was not enough demand to justify in the first place. The government diverts funds from consumer's most desired wants and dumps them into boondoggle projects.

Every single good or service the government produces is either:

A. A good or service that would have been produced more efficiently in the free market.

or

B. A good or service that the free market would not have produced because no one on their own volition would have paid for such a good or service, or at least not enough to justify producing it.

In the case of roads, that would be in the A category.