Nearly half of all Americans are worried about the collapse of a bridge somewhere in the United States, yet nearly two-thirds reject higher taxes to inspect and fix them, according to a new poll.
The collapse of a bridge in Minnesota has put America’s infrastructure on the political agenda.
In an affect called BIMBY — “Better In My Back Yard” — that is common in polling, CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said people often feel that situations locally are better than the national averages.
I’ll have to remember to use that term next time I’m arguing with other Santa Feans about the corrupt bastards in Congress.
Despite the concerns, only one-third of those polled favor increasing the tax on gas to pay for bridge inspections and repairs. The federal program to inspect and repair bridges is funded mostly by the federal tax on gasoline. Sixty-five percent of those questioned were against raising that tax.
Congressman James Oberstar, D-Minnesota, on Wednesday said he would introduce legislation for bridge repair funding and increased inspections. He says a 5-cent increase in the gas tax would pay for the proposed three-year program by generating $8.5 billion a year.
Another gutless wonder! Need to find $8.5 billion? That’s what the chickenhawks in Washington spend on Bush’s War – in a month.
It’s an unfortunate myth that far too many believe these days, that somehow increasing taxes will solve some problem. The US congress is much like a teenager with their dad’s credit card. When junior blows $5000 on pork and toys, do you increase the limit to $10,000?
More than likely, it’s the same sort of greed that led to the collapse in the first place. I suspect the cause will eventually be traced to underspec parts that saved a few bucks during construction. I’ll also wager that this money didn’t go back into public funds.
Why, thank you, Pedro.
1. Rescind the tax cuts given to the wealthy, prosperous and greedy. Spend the money on needs for the whole nation instead of kissy-kissy for Bush’s class buddies.
2. I think that noting spending on Bush’s War might offer a suggestion. Or is military spending sacrosanct?
Regarding the bridges… I called my father, who lives in Minneapolis, the night of the collapse and he shared a wise thought with me. I am always concerned when driving across a bridge as I know the lowest bid won the contract.
Kinda explains the difference between war contractors and domestic, infrastructure contractors…
#3
Even better do this:
1) keep the tax cuts in place
2) don’t raise a single tax until every government program is fully audited and vetted for effectiveness, efficiency and ROI
Stop treating “rich” like your personal piggy bank.
@ethanol
You are certainly misunderstanding if you think that bids by war contractors are won by anything but the lowest bidder.
@everyone
Why should we pay more taxes to fix a bridge that was built when taxes were much much lower than now? If you’re going to say that the cost to build is higher now, well duh. The number of tax payers has also increased offsetting cost of building.
Politicians shouldn’t be making any more money than the rest of us. That would fix a lot of problems.
#6 – have you given up watching the TV news or reading newspapers since Bush began throwing money and lives into his Crusade?
Ever hear of Halliburton or KBR? Billions of dollars have been flushed down the neocon toilet. Graft and corruption thrive on no-bid contracts.
See any major bridges built within the Interstate system on no-bid contracts?
#5 – class warfare is easy. Screw the tax cuts for the rich until working people and the American middle class are provided for. You pick your side. I’ll pick mine.
You can have the “investor class”. I’m perfectly happy standing alongside blue-collar and white-collar folks who’re trying to make ends meet.
WHAT ARE TOLLS USED FOR?
>>You are certainly misunderstanding if you think that bids
>>by war contractors are won by anything but the lowest bidder.
“Halliburton war profiteering”. “KBR”..”No-bid contracts”.
’nuff said.
#10 for fixing potholes, and making dimples on the side of the road to wake you up when you wander too far to the left.
Tolls & gas taxes can only pay for a fraction of what it really costs for roads & bridges. They’re resurfacing a 10km stretch here for a few million.
Considering that 95% of Americans & Canadians are “just” making it financially, and 5% are so rich they don’t care, tax hikes won’t be popular, irregardless of the reason.
1 – End the war, shift the spending toward infrastructral improvment programs, and ensure the work is done by US citizens.
2 – change our laws to make investment in US concerns easier and more profitable (repeal SOX and enforce the normal oversight laws).
3) Don’t raise taxes, but clamp down on loopholes designed to force investment to leave our shores. Tax hikes REDUCE revenues, remember? Of course, more cuts don’t make sense unless they are accompanied by judicious spending cuts.
In short, do the things the pragmatists like Clinton, Gingrich, etc were doing, and get the neocon Republicans out of Washington until they learn how to govern.
There are plenty of areas of government that could be cut to finance this, along side placing more of the financial burden on the indivdual states whom would benefit.
Yea, #6 because only the rich elite can invest money, ignoramous. Open a Scottrade account and discover the virtues of a lower tax rate on dividend draws, or open a small business and find that the capital gains tax reduction is a benefit. You may be content with the abysmal rate of return in social security, but do not impose your fallaciously driven ideology that is based upon a poor understanding of basic economic principles on me. I plan on retiring with an nice RSA because of my abiltiy to think for myself and not rely on some overrated New Deal program and I shouldn’t be taxed even more because of my understanding of investment markets.
Good luck standing by that 3% rate of return.
Of course we need to raise gasoline taxes. Oh yeah, and let’s stop giving subsidies to oil companies with record profits while we’re at it. I’d rather pay for my gasoline at the pump than pay it in my income tax bill. That way, at least I’m paying only for the gasoline I burn, not the gasoline going into someone else’s Humper, Naggravator, Land Bruiser, or other enormo-gas-guzzler.
#1 – joe,
There is a tremendous amount of mismanagement in funds, both in the private and the public sector. Still though, the repairs do have to be paid for. The bridges have to be fixed NOW. We can’t wait until we figure out better financing after all the bridges have collapsed.
#5 – Shane Brady
1) keep the tax cuts in place
2) don’t raise a single tax until every government program is fully audited and vetted for effectiveness, efficiency and ROI
Stop treating “rich” like your personal piggy bank.
1) Good idea. Keep giving all of the middle-class money to the wealthy.
2) Disable government for the foreseeable future so that no services can be rendered by government at all.
As for piggy banks, have you looked around lately? Whole towns are being put out of business. People are going bankrupt trying to pay for their health care. The middle class is eroding.
I think it’s the rich that have been treating the poor and middle class as their piggy banks.
>>Stop treating “rich” like your personal piggy bank.
Better yet, have the rich stop treating the entire rest of the country as THEIR personal piggy bank.
And there are no tolls (other than the newly-implemented HOV-lane tolls around Minneapolis) in MN, btw. They fund interstate road work with the gas tax and federal money.
>>Politicians shouldn’t be making any more money
>>than the rest of us.
They don’t. That’s why they’re all on the take. Even POTUS “only” makes $400,000/yr…sounds like a lot, until you realize that $400K is 0.3% (yep, zero-point-three percent) of the salary of that US Healthcare scumbag. Congress makes $168,000/yr. A nice raise from the $1500 they were getting in 1815, but still not in a position to be worrying about the estate tax. Lots of temptation there to be storing $90,000 wads of cash in your freezer.
Want to know how to shut up a Democratic politician? Pick any issue and ask them how they would solve it without raising taxes. They won’t be able to say a word. Raising taxes is an involuntary reflex for these people.
Not once will you every hear them talk about looking through current spending and prioritizing or looking for waste to eliminate. The gov’t has more than enough money already to do what it should be doing.
Also, as has been mentioned, you would expect that money collected on license fees, gas tax, etc. would be used on roads – however you find out it’s not. Earmark it specifically for roads and we’re all set.
One last thought, want more money? Cut Taxes. Every time taxes are cut, gov’t revenue collected goes up. Funny how that works. Even JFK had that one figured out.
>>Want to know how to shut up a Democratic politician?
Want to know how to shut up a Republican politician? Ask them how they would solve any problem without giving tax breaks to the rich, cutting government services to those people who actually NEED government services, and spending more money and raising the national debt.
Works every time.
As to where the toll and gas taxes go, I agree. We’d have great roads. Just like if Social Security taxes went into funding Social Security; that program would be viable until long after we’re dead (and with some minor tweaking, like making people with the $135,000,000.00 salaries pay SS taxes on a little more of the money they make, viable forever).
#18 – Want to shut up a Republican politician? Ask him/her who’s going to be left paying the interest on all the debt they run up.
#17 – MM,
How about if we try the following (in my dreams of course since this would never be implemented by either party)?
1) Make all lobbying illegal.
2) Fund all campaigns publicly and disallow use of any other funds in any campaign.
3) Tie salaries of elected officials to median household income (we can use some factor if necessary). In essence, put them on commission.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you truly want to understand why we as a nation do ANYTHING, make it your business to find out who profits by that action. General Eisenhower (and General Butler before him) was right: money is the real motive. And as long as the American people continue to allow these interests to pick their pockets, nothing will change. The sad part is that it’s so easy: make the people afraid and money will come pouring in. (fear of global warming; fear of terrorism, etc.) It’s pathetic how gullible we are. Look at the empires we have created in Homeland Security and the TSA. At an aiport recently, a lady actually said to me, “Better safe than sorry, right?,” as our privacy and freedoms were being trampled.
Back to the point – We are rapidly closing in on half a TRILLION dollars down the drain in Iraq. And who’s winning? Certainly not us, and most certainly not the Iraqi people. Again, find out who is profiting financially. Find out where the money’s going.
I see it as a national disgrace that we didn’t have the money to do even a half-assed recovery in New Orleans. And where is the next “structurally compromised” bridge going to collapse? There are thousands of them all over this country. Not to mention the growing legions of homeless people in our cities. By our continued apathy we are letting ourselves and our fellow citizens down in tragic fashion.
Wake up, people! They’re picking your pockets, and putting you MORE AT RISK in return. At the very least, tax return forms should have a designation section where the individual taxpayer gets to declare what he wants his taxes to go to.
Of course, that assumes you trust the government to be truthful, which is a HUGE leap of faith. (In a similar aside, we should also get to prioritize our candidates, as opposed to having to pick the lesser evil.)
What’s the answer? Get involved. Pay attention. Get curious about the things that really matter (hint: celebrities like Paris, Lindsay and Britney don’t matter.. ) YOU, YOUR CHILDREN & THEIR CHILDREN are what really matters. Think about how what we do today will make their world better or worse, and act on what you discover. Do you really think it’s in your grandchildren’s best interest to build up such a HUGE national debt (with China, or any other nation as the repo man)? Get vocal – make others aware how you feel. Above all, VOTE from a position of awareness.
We have what we deserve, and we deserve what we get. Good or bad. Choose to make things better. Technology will help (if we don’t let the government screw that up too).
#20 – And the fact the right’s in that position pisses me off: We don’t need two fiscally irresponsible parties.
Realistically, anyone could become President if they stated the following priority list clearly:
1. Homeland security (though it needs a better name than ‘homeland’)
2. Infrastructure
3. Health care
4. Defense (nation building)
5. Welfare, jobs programs (important social programs)
6. Paying down the debt
7. Other social programs (code for unimportant stuff, like a local museum)
I’m not saying the list is ideal, I’m saying that for today’s reality it’s the most logical.
You are certainly misunderstanding if you think that bids by war contractors are won by anything but the lowest bidder.
And you’ve obviously never been involved in any process that includes awarding contracts based on the “lowest bid”.
They don’t just say “give us a price to build a bridge from here to there.” There are specifications, and the specs can be and are manipulated so that certain bidders have an advantage. Want to make sure the Joe’s Bridge Co gets the contract? Specify crushed granite aggregate, because you know Joe also owns a crushed granite pit. This sort of thing is particularly horrible in government contracting.
Same thing goes for jobs. Want to hire your buddy, even though the contract requires you to take resumes and have an open hiring process? Put in the job requirements that the applicant “must have at least 2 years experience with Sluggo MK3 sofware, version 2.3 or 2.4”.
Because, naturally, that would be your buddy and almost nobody else. Take a look at government (and gov contractor) job postings sometimes…. if you ever wondered why those weird and wacky “requirements” are in there… there’s your answer.
There’s no reason why, if we have TRILLIONS of dollars to declare war on a country that DID NOTHING to us, we have no money for other programs that ACTUALLY BENEFIT PEOPLE!
We, the People, have to disarm the military-industrial complex, as Eisenhower stated in his farewell address. Then, and only then, would we once again prosper as a nation, but as long as the corporations run this country, We, the People, are literally screwed.
Another thing that we can do, is to reinstate the tax structure of the 1950s, that was put in place by a REPUBLICAN president, Eisenhower.
Something else that we can do, is that if there is to be public funding of religious organizations, tax the churches. All of them. Either tax them if they are getting public funding, or rescind their public funding.
Homeland security (though it needs a better name than ‘homeland’)
I’ve always favored “Fatherland Security” or “Reichstag” myself.
Good list, by the way.
#21 – Mr. Scott
Sounds like a good start to me. Although I would tweak #2 (“Fund all campaigns publicly and disallow use of any other funds in any campaign.”). I’d like to see a few publicly-funded debates before the primary, and a few more before the election. No other expenditures.
That way, anybody who is really interested in knowing what the candidates think can easily find out; the rest of the lemmings are just being manipulated by sleazy, mudslinging campaign ads that barrage them with bullshit on TV, radio, and billboards. That doesn’t get rid of the problem of incumbents using their office as a de facto campaign platform, but you’ve gotta start somewhere.
The day they cut all the waste and pork out of the budget and they still don’t have the money for roads, is the day I’ll support more taxes.
Example of the waste: There’s a department in KY that provides and distributes school supplies to low income kids. Sounds like a wonderful program right? The department has 2 employees with a combined salary of $200K+ and they distribute only $5k worth of supplies. They could have helped 40x more students for that salary. Here’s an idea…. distribute X amount of supplies to each school and let them determine who actually needs the help.
Bring in a corporate CEO and treat the government like a business, cut the waste, cut the waste! I would bet they could provide the same services for 50% of the costs.
We have the technology to create a Real Democracy without so much wasteful Government, just let the people decide and save trillion$ ?
irregardless???
Hate to debone you but in order to unravel your usage of this word I Had to unthaw my dictionary.
Usage Note: Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so.
#23, I agree with most of your list but putting homeland security #1 is too high. We had a couple of thousand die on 9-11, which is far fewer than the number who died in car accidents or from cancer.
That said, I am tired the only option given taxpayers to fix infrastructure is to raise taxes. Why are we still funding PBS? Are we any less dependent on foreign oil since we opened a department of energy? No. Are grades and SAT scores higher since we formed the department of education? No.
Not one politiican in the current political debate is talking about cutting costs… except Ron Paul AKA Dr. No.
Republicans love Ronald Reagan as do I, but they have totally forgotten his message about smaller government. One quote of his I love, “There is nothing as permanent as a temporary government program.”
Thank God most people are against paying more in taxes to fix the roads. It restores some of my faith that the American people aren’t as easily manipulated as I thought.
#28 – MM,
I’d agree on publicly funded debates. How about requiring attendance as a condition of qualification for office?
I don’t think enough people will watch the debates though. For the 30 second sound bite crowd, I’d still allow enough funding for some amount of this type of “Vote for me, I’ve got great hair!” type of advertising. Perhaps though, the limit should be set low enough to leave candidates with time between campaigning to actually do their jobs though.
#23 – James,
Good list. Excellent thought. I agree that you’re definitely onto something.
Mind if I slip the environment in there somewhere? We do need a healthy biosphere in order to survive both biologically and economically. For an example of what economy looks like when the environment is trashed, just look at the island of Hispaniola.
Neither Haiti nor the Dominican Republic has the economy we do, of course. But, Haiti trashed their environment and is now the poorest country in the Americas. D.R. saved a bunch of the environment and is among the wealthiest of Caribbean nations, for whatever that’s worth. But, it’s a fair “apples-to-apples” comparison since they’re on the same island.