9 years ago
7
Raise the Gas Tax Already
The federal gas tax is, as it should be, a key source of funding for highway spending. The problem is that it hasn’t gone up since 1993. By James Surowiecki.
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I'd rather the existing money just be used more efficiently. Any time this comes up, I immediately think of the classic road worker scene involving a bunch of them standing around watching one worker do a task. A lengthy explanation has been provided for the phenomena involving unions, specialized training, etc. but the reality is that other industries don't waste human resources the way road construction does. Our infrastructure is decaying and should be improved, but I think the money to do it is already there. Its just being squandered.
That, and electric vehicles are currently expensive and mass transit is confined to cities.
Have you never been in a job where a dozen people were waiting for one person to complete their piece before they could start on their parts?
I've never been a huge fan of Taylorism.
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but no, I've not. If we adopted that stance nationwide prices of everything would skyrocket and our economy would be unable to compete. I don't see why expecting the government to use the money we pay in taxes efficiently can be considered a bad thing.
Then you are the exception. If you know a way to streamline every work process so bottlenecks never appear, go and publish that book or patent that process. You'll make a fortune. Until then, it's unreasonable to hold the world to a standard that only exists inside your head.
I don't know what you're talking about here, but I presume you mistook Taylorism for some sort of socialism. It was actually the opposite: Taylor proposed a system for "scientific management" in human labor to the degree that workers almost started a Marxist revolution in the US over labor practices. Humans aren't machines, and it's not a good idea to treat us that way.
It's one thing to expect government to spend its funding efficiently. It's another to hold the government to a standard that doesn't exist in private industry, either.
I can see you're approaching this from the human dignity angle, but I'm talking about the reality that exists now. Right now we have people paying taxes out of their salaries that they work, to varying degrees, very hard for. When the government uses those taxes to spend $80 on a hammer when a hammer that works just as well is available for $40, that is a failure of the social contract.
End result is this, if the rest of us are expected to work all day to pay for the roads, the people making the roads should be expected to work all day too.
The problem with the concept is in terms of repair/maintenance, high axle load vehicles are responsible for the vast majority of the wear/damage to road surfaces. (big rigs / tractors / ag and construction vehicles) It's been shown the case many times over but the argument really boils down to the same old practice of paying for private commerce with public tax money. Is there enough direct benefit to each individual to warrant an all in approach versus making industry actually pick up a share of the costs reflective of what they are actually responsible for causing?
Yep, and place another burden on people least able to afford it.