One of the worst bipartisan gimmicks ever is the proposal for a summer cut of the gas tax. You know how much I hate taxes.
Except the gas tax actually is a user fee: You pay it, they build and fix the roads. If you don’t drive, you don’t pay the tax.
A real reform would be to turn the entire Interstate Highway System over to the states, getting the feds out of it completely. Better yet, entirely privatize the system.
There’s nothing in the Constitution that authorizes the Interstate Highway System. Eisenhower built it to imitate the Autobahns he saw after he conquered Hitler’s Germany. The excuse for Ike’s Folly was that it was for “national defense.” Supposedly, the Russkis were going to attack the East Coast while the ChiComs were going to attack the West Coast, so the freeways would be used by the military to truck the troops to the invasion points. Except both commie powers didn’t have any capability to invade America, and still don’t now that they’re capitalist.
Ironically, the interstate system makes it easy for illegal immigrants to spread across the whole country.
The highways ripped up wide swaths of every big city in America, commonly the areas where blacks lived because they didn’t have as much clout as whites. The blacks were forced into “projects,” instant slums that profited well-connected landlords and developers, Republican and Democrat.
McCain proposed the gas-tax-cut idea and Hillary supports it. The first doesn’t know anything about economics and the second is a cynical opportunist. Only Obama is opposed.
Finally, as a constant reader of my blog, you know that the real reason gas prices are high is not because of the gas tax, but inflation. Nobody but Ron Paul is talking about that. So expect no real relief.
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