Published on lp.org:
For Immediate Release
Friday May 24, 2013
In the wake of the dramatic collapse of the Interstate 5 bridge in Mount Vernon, Wash., on May 23, federal and state politicians will make their usual claims that ever-higher government spending is needed — funded by more taxpayer dollars and more deficit spending — to fix the country’s roads in need of repair as well as the dangerous roads that need safety barriers fitted.
But it’s a fraud. More money is not the answer. Much lower total government spending is.
The first step is to open the government’s books to learn how those federal and state government politicians are spending the trillions of dollars they already collect and spend every year.
“Don’t be surprised to learn that, in most states, less than 2 percent of state government spending goes toward building, fixing, or maintaining roadways,” said Libertarian National Committee Executive Director Carla Howell.
In Massachusetts, state politicians spent more than $53.3 billion in fiscal year 2012. Only $1.7 billion went to the state Department of Transportation. And only $63.9 million of the Massachusetts DOT’s budget was spent on road “construction and maintenance” and “materials, supplies, services” — a minuscule 0.12 percent (one eighth of 1 percent) of total Massachusetts state government spending.
A 2008 study by pollster Tony Fabrizio showed that the average Massachusetts voter believes that 41 cents on every dollar the state government spends is wasted. If voters are correct, there’s more than $21 billion in government waste ripe for the cutting, a tiny fraction of which is needed for roads.
“Road maintenance, construction, and repair should be funded as locally as possible,” Howell said. “We certainly don’t need the federal government butting in and adding to the waste. That will only drive up costs more and tempt politicians to sign on to Big Government boondoggles like the Big Dig.”
Politicians sold voters on the Big Dig, a road project in downtown Boston, in the late 1980s, with a price tag of $2.3 billion. The taxpayers’ bill now stands at more than $24 billion.
Most major road construction today is paid for with bonds, or funded with federal TARP money, rather than scheduled to fall within state or local highway operating budgets. Continual debt funding of roads drives up costs, grows government debt, and creates excuses for higher government spending.
“Every dangerous road, tunnel, and bridge in America should be fixed or replaced immediately — but without blackmailing taxpayers for more money,” Howell said. “Instead, politicians and their appointees should be held criminally negligent for allowing any public thoroughfare to remain unsafe. At the same time, we must stop debt-funding roads and force politicians to fund road maintenance and repairs from planned budgets. As always, we must dramatically downsize federal, state, and local government budgets to remove waste.”
Deran, I’m sorry, I thought WE were discussing the Interstate 5 Bridge Collapse, and the private ownership of bridges and infrastructure as a means of solving the problem of massive government failure… (as per the discussion stemming from the original post) Since you are no longer discussing the topic, and are instead discussing something completely different, I believe we are at an impasse.
Sincerely,
Steve Scheetz
@Be Rational. Your trash talk only serves to buttress my statements and prove prof Wolff to be too intelligent for you to make any rational arguments.
@Steve Scheetz. I ignored your NYC stuff because, to be honest, it is not what I am talking about. I am talking about getting people out of motor vehicles, the NYC Transit Authority are corrupt bureaucrats who’s only real concern is money and their retirement packages.
Richard D Wolff is an idiot. He is so completely wrong on your tape that it’s obvious that he is not a real economist – no matter what various pieces of paper hanging on his walls may erroniously proclaim or what undeserved and innacurate job title he may hold. If he were alone in a room, he still wouldn’t be “the smartest economist in the room” because there would be no economist in the room.
“Mr. Scheetz. As has been mentioned previously in this thread, the I-5 bridge over the Skagit River apparently collapsed because a stanchion had been hit by an oversized load. Nothing to do with bridge load data.”
Actually it has EVERYTHING to do with bridge load data. according to your own statement
“From Seattle to Canada there are only minor secondary roads they could take to Canada.”
there are no other feasible routes for an oversized truck to take. This is what feasibility studies are all about. Obviously, back when this bridge was designed, it was designed without any forethought of what could possibly be driving on it. It was poor planing, it was poorly executed, and it is a very weak argument to say that the government simply did not know, then say that it had the data, then say that there were no contingency plans for an oversized load, but then say that they could not have planned for…..
Your social engineering argument also seems to have lost its steam since you chose to ignore the government charging a ludicrously high toll to use a bridge in NY… BTW, those with EZ-PASS pay significantly less.. Is it social engineering to offer an advantage to those who would link a credit card to an EZ-Pass? I believe that is actually the textbook definition… Influencing behavior using money as a means of persuasion…. (unlike your example)
Sincerely,
Steve Scheetz
Mr. Scheetz. As has been mentioned previously in this thread, the I-5 bridge over the Skagit River apparently collapsed because a stanchion had been hit by an oversized load. Nothing to do with bridge load data.
As far as people being able to take a different route if they don’t want to pay a toll, this is false. From Seattle to Canada there are only minor secondary roads they could take to Canada.
And as far as existing privately owned roads, are they major interstates? What is the daily volume of motor vehicles that pass through those roads?
@Be Rational. I’d direct you to the link in my name with this comment. There is Richard D. Wolff, the smartest economist in the room.
So, lets say there are three dozen bridges of various kinds between Seattle and Canada. And let’s assume they are all privately owned, and they all charge some toll, that in theory is used to their up keep and I assume to the profit of the structures owner. How could these private roads generate enough money for their upkeep if they can only charge what they drivers will be willing to pay? Will the brdge owners, of their own unselfish accord, or because of government regs, keep a certain amount of the tolls in am account that would be used to keep up the bridge? Even if these private bridges could generate both a profit and upkeep, would they be required to be maintained based on social or government regs?
Socialists have no understanding of economics … that’s why they are able to be socialists.
Things like noncontractual limited liability and corporate welfare come to mind here. Even so, governments have much worse records even against the quasi-free market we have.
Speaking of the arguments about toll roads, does anyone here imagine they are free? You are already paying for them through various taxes, including gas taxes and others that are charged to everyone, even shut-ins who never leave their own house. Just because you don’t pay a toll does not mean it’s “free.”
Deran, as evidenced by the collapse, those who designed the bridge obviously had no data regarding what would be driving across the bridge in 2013.
Regarding social engineering… Seriously? In New York City, the GOVERNMENTs of NY and NJ, by way of the Port Authority charges $13 for passenger vehicles, and trucks are charged $15 per axle.
Somehow this is not considered social engineering. Somehow, those without bank accounts are not taken into consideration, and somehow, there is no outrage unless it is a private company who is creating the pay per use structure.
In this current world, there is a choice. one can either leave things for the government which has a rather extensive track record of failure, or he/she can find and handle a solution him/herself.
I would personally prefer a privately owned bridge, because I KNOW that the owner(s) of said bridge have a vested interest in keeping it maintained.
Government, as evidenced, does not.
Have a great day.
Sincerely,
Steve Scheetz
The owners can’t charge whatever they want. They have to charge what people could afford to pay. Someone could charge a thousand dollars a gallon for gas and very few people could afford it, but that would never happen, and neither would your fantasy about the prices road owners would charge.
Yes, someone could choose a different route, and the person that owns that route would charge a lower price and get all the traffic. That’s how markets work.
This is not speculation – there have been, and still are, many privately owned roads, and they don’t charge exorbitant tolls.
It’s simple math. Out here, around both sides of Puget Sound, there are dozens of rivers and creeks and sloughs etc that need to be crossed by bridges. If there were a toll on all these bridges, if the rods were privatized and the owners could charge what ever fee they want (and no, you could not just “choose” a different route, roads are a physical monopoly). There is no way 98% of people could afford to drive from Seattle north to Canada, too many private tolls. Thus, only the wealthy could afford to travel where they want via motorized vehicle.
Deran,
What are you talking about? Only 2% could pay for toll roads? Maybe only 2% could pay for gasoline? Oh wait….
19 ss: Private companies who own the bridges would have a vested interest in maintaining their bridge, because it is THEIRS
me: That’s true enough. And yet private companies do make things that fail – buildings come to mind. Some buildings are built in a sub-par manner. Most of the time, buildings are insured, so the insurance companies sometimes miss flawed designs or usages of buildings that make them dangerous.
One hates to overstate a case, in this case, for private infrastructure.
Steve Scheetz, sounds like you are proposing some excellent social engineering by making car travel unafforadble to all but the 2%. I basically favor this, reducing motor vehicle traffic. But if I were to propose taxes on motor vehicles as a means of getting people on trains etc, I’d be denounced as a socialist. But when you propose to restrict who can travel it’s “liberty” and “free markets”. I call pshaw on the notion of private toll roads. Pshaw.
and your assumption that no one has data to develop traffic corridors is absurd. How do you imagine all this has happened. Willy-nilly? Random roll of dice?
Deran, government has been talking about building 100 year bridges for decades now. Frankly, I do not know how they can make such a claim without any data regarding the increases in traffic, etc., but there it is. Private companies who own the bridges would have a vested interest in maintaining their bridge, because it is THEIRS…. Here in Pennsylvania, we have a privately owned bridge it crosses the Delaware River into NJ, and it is called theDingman’s Ferry Bridge.
They accept cash, sell tokens, and take credit cards. On a bridge along Interstate 5, I am reasonably certain that all of those people without bank accounts could purchase pre-paid visa cards in order to set up an EZ-pass, but even if they did not have a grocery store, a convenience store, a drug store, or a pawn shop nearby, in which they could purchase pre-paid cards, I am reasonably sure that there will be a lane that handles cash.
Sincerely,
Steve Scheetz
With all due respect to Dr Phillies and at the risk of sounding like a snob, most people with an automobile and a commute would most likely be in the population that has credit cards.
If there were more toll roads, new technology and new payment methods would almost certainly arise, simply because there would be more demand for such things, and so there would be more profit for those who were able to develop them. That’s the beauty of a free market*, which some self-styled “libertarians” apparently have absolutely no faith in.
*Yes, I’m fully aware that we do not have a true free market, but even a quasi-free market like the one we do have is capable of producing innovations that would-be central planners could never foresee. Of course, if government regulations on technology, financial transactions, etc. were repealed, the results would undoubtedly be even better.
Pretty easy to buy a prepaid card for cash at Walmart or any number of other places.
The fraction of Americans who are unbanked is considerably larger than those of us with bank accounts etc tend to believe. The fraction, which is larger in some minority communities, has been increasing. Because the Federal government wants to move its transfers to all-electronic, there are increasing difficulties with people who are not part of the banking system. Even one cash lane ties up traffic appreciable, not to mention creating traffic hazards as people stop, pay, and re-enter traffic.
“EZ Pass” means that people without bank accounts/credit cards cannot use the road, which is an outcome inferior to the current one.
Most people have those. Some others can prepay directly into an account for an EZ Pass type system. A single lane to pay cash tolls is also possible; I’ve seen places where this is done without even requiring a toll booth attendant.
@8 That was a platform plank of one of our state parties. @12 For this (and the highway bridge just taken out by a railroad train collision) you have the basic issue that extended spans (as opposed to railway embankments) cannot be made arbitrarily strong.
My reports say that the truck struck the top of the bridge, where trucks were not expected to be.
“EZ Pass” means that people without bank accounts/credit cards cannot use the road, which is an outcome inferior to the current one.
And while I agree that there is government waste — why should they be better than the system that ran General Motors? — the Republican notion that eliminating waste and filing fraud will balance the budget is just plain nuts.
Uhhh–shouldn’t the possibility of a collision been considered and planned for? I don’t find that an acceptable excuse for the bridge collapsing.
I noticed both the liberals and libertarians/tea partiers both jumped on this immediately.
Mr. Wagner correctly points out that it was an oversize load on a truck that apparently struck a stanchion or something and caused the bridge to fail. It wasn’t aged infrastructure that the GOP is too cheap to fix, nor a matter of the government having built a bridge in the wrong place or what not.
We’ve just started some EZ Pass lanes here on the Harbor Freeway which goes right through Los Angeles. Luckily, I don’t need to commute more than 4 miles to work, and not by freeway, but Los Angeles remains one of the most congested traffic areas there is. I hope it helps.
I also know that many of our bridges and overpasses here are extremely unsafe (don’t forget we have an extraordinary earthquake risk here). Lord help us when the biggie finally hits.
I would easily pay for a pass to lesson my freeway time if I was able to. I did the commute thing for 4 years and hated it.
Paulie, EXACTLY! I see EZPass express lanes set up so that users do not even need to slow down (very much) to handle the toll payment…. Like on I-95 heading up to NYC, and on 476 at the Mid-County toll gate, and the various EZ Pass only exits along the way……
Steve
Who says that?
With modern technology, toll booths are not needed; already implemented on EZ Pass lanes (different names in different states), Hong Kong streets etc.
Free market competition between different companies that build and operate bridges is certainly possible.
Seen plenty of it with my own eyes over the years. I’m sure I’m not the only one here who has. When there’s an “endless” supply of money, a massive bureaucracy that makes effective oversight virtually impossible, no way to go out of business and almost no way for anyone to get fired, what do you expect?
Polling reveals that a large fraction of the population believes that the earth is 6000 years old.
Arguing with people who think the world is 6000 years old is like arguing with people who think America is 7 inches wide.
@3 I’m sorry, you are proposing to put a toll booth on every bridge on this section of the interstate? Free market competition in bridges is, incidentally, physically impossible, in that there can only be one bridge linking those two points on the ground.
@0 Why do you keep repeating Republican nonsense? “government waste” has been a Republican lying point for decades. “Bad government policies” is actually true, like defense welfare, but the money is actually being spent as Congress voted, namely to blow up babies in foreign countries.
@4 Probability zero. Some of these people are the same people who believed that in a libertarian society privately owned freeways would have no speed limits. Apparently the possible opinions of the owners (who might want speed limits) and the customers (many of whom would like to see psychopaths who tool through at 85 in a 65 MPH zone banned for life from that road) are of no consequence.
Polling reveals that taxpayers think money is wasted-
Are people issuing these statements aware that the bridge collapsed due to a collision?
I have a better idea….. Don’t bother asking government to trim fat, eliminate fraud, waste, and/or abuse…. It has NEVER happened in the HISTORY of the government.
Simply put, I suggest privatization of said bridge. Allow free market competition to enable companies to create the best bridge possible for the best price possible, and then, make a profit.
This is CLEARLY a demonstration of big government failure, and if we ask government to fix the problem, it will simply FAIL at fixing its own failure.
I am tired of dealing with government failure, Ladies and Gentlemen, “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!”
Sincerely,
Steve Scheetz
ch: “Instead, politicians and their appointees should be held criminally negligent for allowing any public thoroughfare to remain unsafe.”
me: I’d like to hear more about how THIS might work. IF it’s practicable, one can imagine long list of CYA memos by bureaucrats asking for budget dollars to immunize themselves from prosecution.
On its face, this idea seems to be WAY off the rails….
This is another sad example of the folly following the failed socialist model in the provision of infrastructure.
Government builds the wrong infrastructure, in the wrong places resulting in massive waste of resources, lowered living standards due to the effects of malinvestment, urban sprawl, overconsumption and production of energy, overreliance on expensive and unnecessary modes of transportation, pollution, and global warming.
Worse, they cannot properly maintain the overbuilt socialist monstrosity resulting in the deteriorated condition of the failed socialist infrastructure from water systems and sewers, to transportation – it is collapsing before our eyes. We can expect far worse to come.
It is time to end the foolish reliance on this failed and faulty socialist model. There is no such thing as a natural monopoly and no excuse for the socialistic design, construction, finance or maintenance of any infrastructure.
Libertarians should call for the gradual but expeditious privatization of the the infrastructure.