It Was Only A Matter Of Time Before This Began.......

The President:

 

Take from the many and give to the few.

 

Unfortunately.

Of course our roads would be much better if only licensed drivers paid the taxes for upkeep.

Roads aren't that important though. Are they?

 

Not much for those who can't drive on them.

 

Brilliant response Coin!

It's not all about US getting THERE.

Try thinking about "things" getting from THERE to HERE.

Silly things like food for example. Let the roads decay and watch prices skyrocket.

Just a teeny example.

 

Sure, if the trucking companies want to drive on the roads, they should pay. Oh, wait, they do. Take a look at how well toll roads are maintained by the people who actually use them.

Hey, how about this? We keep the fees on the toll roads just like they are. But now we will allow any driver who can't afford the toll to also drive on the toll road. Oh, that may not be so good after all. The road will begin to deteriorate quicker because of all the extra traffic, the cost of maintenance will then increase in order to keep the road in shape and those paying the toll will begin to wonder why they can't also drive for free. Well, maybe that's not such a good idea....

 

Let's see here.

Look at how well toll roads are maintained. I happen to live a few miles from one actually. It's decent. Not great by any standards but there.
Not really any better than the "freeway" that has a much higher volume of vehicles travel through it.

Yes, truckers pay. I used to manage a truckstop so I'm pretty sure of that.

Most drove "freeway" or backroads. (Our food is most likely cheaper because of this BTW.)

What's next? I pay the minute I leave my driveway and at every stop sign? Toll booths in every town at every corner?

That would make things flow more smoothly.

 

Not necessarily. You've heard the expression, "Time is money". Most toll roads will get you to your destination much quicker than backroads or even Interstate highways. Shorter routes means less fuel used. Smoother roads means less wear and tear on vehicles. Truckers, of course, know this and are willing to pay the toll in order to get to where they're going quicker. A destination means another truckload and, well, you know how business works...

So, do you like the idea of letting everyone on the toll roads, even those who don't pay?

 

I wrote my doctoral dissertation on toll roads, they DO NOT work well, despite what you right wing hoo-ha's say. Look up the Plank road and turnpike movements of the 1830's-60s for an example of privatization working so well... AND THAT WAS WITH WAGONS!

 

Exactly the problems encountered when free-market forces try to drive highway systems. The system of "the private provision of a public good," DOES NOT WORK when there is a profit incentive. By the way, most shipping is still carried out by rail, trucks can't even come close to matching the volume without completely destroying all of our roads.

 

We pay for many things with our taxes that we may never use as individuals but we recognize that having things like Levi's, canals, bridges, sewer systems, water treatment plants, and any number of other tax funded utilities that tend to benefit us all as a country. To think otherwise would be absolutely naive.

Now, the issue of health care is no different. Pretty much 99.99999999 percent of us will use it at one point or another at some point in our lives. Most of us were born in a hospital before we could even think about paying for health care. Heck, most of us benefitted from prenatal care before we were born.

Anyone so completely stupid that they think that their taxes should only pay the things they will use, needs to have a brain transplant or at least have one inserted.

Again, all I see from these selfish Right-wing ideologues is greed and stupidity fomented by a fact-free media source bent on profitting off of stupid angry and scared people.

 

Also, you do realize that all or almost all of the roads in the United States were privately owned and collectively maintained until around 1870, when the STATE governments found it necessary to step in due to market failure and private corporations failing to adequately maintain the roads due to profit mongering. A classic example of market failure, right in your backyard.

 

An interesting fact of history that you have just reminded me of was the relationship the British Parliament members had with the East Indian Trading Company. A large number of them owned stock in the EITC and governed based on what would increase their profits. This of course caused the colonists to dump a million dollars worth of tea into Boston Harbor and start the revolution. It worked out for us but not the British. Now we have the same situation where our government is so heavily involved with corporations that our foreign policy isn't dictated by the spread of democracy so much as it is dictated by the needs of private corporations regardless of the stated values of this country. Other countries know this but we are lied to and sent to fight foreign conflicts that really only benefit some corporation's bottom line. History will repeat itself and we will go the way of the British empire if this hypocrisy isn't corrected.

Thomas Jefferson wanted a wall of separation between the government and corporations written into the Constitution because of the lessons learned from the British. Ultimately it didn't happen but the need for such a wall has never been more necessary. We need to take our country back from the Plutocrats like Romney.

 

Insert Speech Bubble...

Yes, IQless1, I am happy I got re-elected too....thanks for calling. And I too think the second term will be better than the first. Really, this job got a lot easier once I figured out we can keep giving the people more and more but making them pay less and less. for it Like right now, we are giving the people $3.5 trillion worth of stuff a year but only making them pay $2.4 trillion for it. It is like magic...only better! We don't even have to prioritize anything or make any hard decisions! And the great thing is we can keep doing it forever! Talk to you later!

 

If by people you mean military contractors, big oil companies, insurance companies and big pharma, and by stuff you mean trillion in tax breaks that only further balloon the deficit, I'd agree with you.

 

I mean simple math. The kind neither party can seem to do once elected.

 

At the end of the day, I really don't care much what we, as a country, decide to have the government provide. Roads, Health Insurance, Big Bird, whatever. I just wish we would at least pretend that we know we have to pay for it some how. To me that is not being liberal or conservative - it is just living in reality. We can't have everything for nothing forever.

 

Ironic use of the word "stuff," Mr. O'Reilly?

 

You mean like

 

Your last sentence is the only one I can bring myself to disagree with. We don't pay nothing and in fact we pay a lot. We pay and pay and pay but who pays and who pays how much is the crux of the problem. If the people with all of the money pay next to nothing and the rest of the people that have very little money pay a much larger proportion of their incomes but on a vastly smaller amount to begin with, you simply cannot afford to have the bulk of the revenue increasing for the group paying next to nothing while the group that makes far less is falling further and further behind economically as the gap between rich and poor continues to widen.