Gas Tax

Hello Sup Forums! Today, I would like to get your opinions on a raise in Gas Tax. Now, I know that this is an unpopular opinion, but I truly believe that in order to repair our failing infrastructure, a spike in the tax of gasoline is necessary. That is my opinion, so now I want to hear yours, and have a good debate in general.

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Tax fast food and America would be rolling in the sheckels

But we already have a fast food tax in some states. Which is SUPPOSED to be used to fix our infrastructure.

actual politics on Sup Forums, fuck off m8

Maybe Sup Forums can change afterall

Fuck you, Indiana just imposed a new 10 cent per gallon tax, they need a batter budget not more fucking money, eat a dick

t. Pissed off Hoosier

I agree that they need a better budget. We pay taxes to get things like our roads fixed, not to fund some millionaire's or billionaire's bukkake party.

Kansas fag here

They tried that

All our roads are now shit because they're working on the entire city at once and too spread thin

Accidents every day. Delays get worse and worse. I think people should vote which roads be fixed.

If the revenue from the tax is strictly ringfenced, with the spending decisions being clear and fully accountable, it could work.

However, issues that would need to be borne in mind:

1. Would the raising / spending of the tax be controlled at a state or federal level?
2. What about electric vehicles?
3. The transport / logistics industry will cry foul over this. How do you respond?
4. Will infrastructure include things such as railroads and other non-motor vehicle items (for instance, building a metro system in a large city)? If so, how will you respond to the complaints / political attacks that motor vehicle users are not receiving the investment they are paying for?

Almost all roads need to be fixed. As an Alaskan/Idahoian, I have seen quite a few accidents on our roads. For one, Living back home in Alaska is dangerous, due to the fact that during the winter, our roads become literal death traps. There are so many potholes in both states i live in, it is unreal. Our bridges are also falling apart, and one collapsed a few years back, and quite a few people died. I live near a dam here in Idaho (near Washington border), and it has so many cracks, they say its gonna crumble in the next 15-20 years.

They also need to learn to get more inspectors, engineers, and people that actually care about it. As well as learning to only work on a portion of a city at once, instead of spreading it out for the entire city.

Here are my thoughts.

1. It should be controlled on a state level, as soon as we can get competent people that actually care about human safety.
2. This is where tolls come into place.
3. The value of gasoline is so undervalued, it is almost funny. So many people cry and complain when the price of gas is increased by even 5 cents, let alone a whole dollar. People need to learn to conserve gasoline, and make their trips count.
4. Yes, they should also work on non motor items as well. Dams, for example, are a pretty good place to start, as mentioned before. I am not fully aware as to the attacks they receive, so I cannot comment as that.

Good answers on all counts, thank you,

Regarding tolls, I've seen them work quite well in France, where certain highways carry tolls; the road connecting Calais to Paris, for instance, is very well maintained, especially given the traffic it takes.

My comment on political attacks comes from how politics seems to be working nowadays, on both sides of the pond. It seems very difficult to forge a concensus on a matter.

Thank you.

I have never been to France, but I have seen quite a bit of video/s on France's infrastructure, and have talked to a few civil engineers on the topic, and I am quite impressed by the way they maintain stuff over there.
Sadly, Politics have always been like this, no matter where you live, or when you lived. Here in the states, both sides of the aisle say that this topic (infrastructure) is very important, and yet they never really do anything about it. All talk, and no action.

Texan here don’t do this our infrastructure is good

Im sorry, and i mean no offense to either you or your state, but you guys just had a major Hurricane soak a quarter of your state, your roads (at least a third of them), have major potholes in them, a lot of your bridges are collapsing, and you have hundreds of dams in your state alone that need to be either repaired, or needs to have an entirely new dam built about a quarter mile away from the old one (so that way the old one cant still stop the water while you work on the new one).


So please, and again, I mean no disrespect, but how is your state's infrastructure good?

Have you ever been to texas post or pre hurricane? We have had so much money donated plus we have many workers always working roads and buildings.

Pre Hurricane, my plane got delayed by 8 hours. So to be fair, I dont have enough experience when it comes to physically being there to witness it. However, I keep up with a lot of news regarding infrastructure (I am going to school to be an engineer), and Texas infrastructure is not the greatest in the world. Now that is not me saying that you guys dont have a lot of money, no, from refineries and oil pumps and drills, you do (although with harvey, more than a quarter of those are shut down), Im simply saying that the taxes need to be spent wisely, and a better budget be formed.

Just a quick comment, this is mostly about US Infrastructure, and gas taxes in the states. However, feel free to talk about your own country's examples, or problems.

I'm going to share an unpopular and unintuitive opinion, but one which actually works upon further examination.

Privatize all the roads.

A system of free or subsidized roads suffers from the tragedy of the commons. If something is free, its use tends to expand. The problem with a gas tax is that while it does economize driving time, it doesn't really economize driving distance. Driving distance is externalized onto society. A system of public roads is what makes it economical to live 60 miles away from your workplace. It allows developers to put neighborhoods at increasingly distant locations, eroding the countryside, making cities spread out over such a large area that you MUST drive. Imagine if a developer had to pay for the extra strain his new subdivision puts on society.

This is the problem of the American city. Our cities are young and had cheap transit during their formative eras, first with streetcars, then with automobiles and federal road subsidies (like the 1916 Federal Aid Road Act), so there's no way they can be as dense and comfy as European cities.

part 1/n

Here are a couple thoughts as to your influencing response, that I am neither for, nor against:

1. I think one thing auto makers need to do, is to increase the amount of gasoline that is used, versus that which is wasted in the car (currently only half of a gallon of gas is used, while the other half is wasted in most standard automobile).

2. Then, shouldnt we focus on having people live closer to their work?

3. Like number 2, that is another problem, because you cant keep stacking things on top of one another, and just let it be OK. Weight is a major issue.

4. That wouldnt really be economically friendly, i agree.

5. A European style of city is not as conducive to an american mindset.

Furthermore publicly subsidized roads are why we don't have good mass transit.

1. As a city's footprint expands, it obviously gets harder and harder to service with mass transit or public transit.

2. Having a subsidized alternative to private mass transit means that private buses, taxis, jitneys, uber, subways can't compete. Suppose you had to pay 40$ for a day's access to the interstate highways. Suddenly capitalists and investors would be rushing to build bullet trains and hyperloops because they'd actually be profitable.

3. There's no way for the public roads to fail financially. There's no way to decide as an individual that "I want to give my money to trains rather than roads." Individuals can't put the roads out of business, making way for private mass transit.

The result of all this is that you have an urban landscape where walking anywhere is impossible. Poor people are hurt worst because everyone needs a car. Mass transit is rare to non-existent, or it must be provided by the public, usually poorly.
Shipping costs are also higher.

part 2/n

Op here again, another problem with privatizing roads, is that Privatized government, is still government, but with no democratic restraint.

Just another thought, if we were to privatize roads, then they should be up for bid, and then re bid on every 5 years

Interesting point/s.

my thoughts:

1. I agree

2. Unless you were to go on a massive shopping trip, or do something that would net you a ton of money, such an amount that one would have to pay is not conducive to the average user/commuter. One could argue that you could use back roads, but at that point, they would become just as clogged as interstates and highways are now.

3. One could bring this up at a government meeting (city or state), or they could donate to the mode of transportation of their choice. I myself am a huge fan of japan's and china's bullet-trains, and think they are an economically sound idea.

Everything stated however, both what is currently in place, and not in place, are huge problems that dont have simple answers. There will need to be compromises on all sides.

>Privatized government, is still government, but with no democratic restraint.
I'll get to this.
Who benefits from all the inefficiencies I've describe?
Auto makers.

Public roads are a subsidy on the auto industry. Public roads expand the city's footprint to the point where you MUST own a car.
Poor mass transit also benefits the auto industry for obvious reasons.
Increasing the amount of gas a car uses wouldn't solve anything.

I'll be right back.

>3. The value of gasoline is so undervalued, it is almost funny. So many people cry and complain when the price of gas is increased by even 5 cents, let alone a whole dollar. People need to learn to conserve gasoline, and make their trips count.
When you raise the cost of gasoline, you raise the cost to ship any good. This means that every 1 cent you raise gas, inflates the price for all goods in your area because every product travels via gasoline (diesel) from at least some point in its supply chain to its final sell point.

Raising gas prices by adding or increasing taxes by 1 penny on gas costs the citizens more than just an extra 15 cents per fill up.

If you want to raise infrastructure fees, you are better off raising the state sales tax, and making sure your state legislature doesn't then dump the revenue into the general fund, or, if set aside, use that dedicated money in the general fund by borrowing against that fund or selling bonds backed by that fund. That's how so many states have let their current infrastructure fail, despite already have dedicated gas taxes and receiving "dedicated" funds from the US government to maintain their infrastructure (roads, bridges, dams).

Also, a sales tax gets every kind of motor vehicle. Otherwise you end up like California and Massachusetts, which are passing new taxes and licensing fees on electric vehicle because electric vehicles don't use gas at all, or to capture more revenue due to shrinking gas taxes because each generation of cars becomes slightly more efficient at using gasoline and so the consumers use less of it over time while still travelling the same distance.

/thread

Why? Do you think this will be an incentive to use alternatives to a car or do you just think this is the best way to raise some extra money to get it done?

Fair point, I do agree.

What I see it benefiting, is how far one can travel, and with that, how much less gas you would need to get from point a to point b.

The problem with tolls in the US is that the state gets addicted to that revenue stream, and so they never go away.

We have several major road projects (toll highways and toll bridges) what the toll was to pay the costs of financing and construction of these projects. Once the major costs were covered, the people were promised that these projects would go to free usage, and their general maintenance would come out of the general infrastructure funds. However, out of more than 2 dozen (more than 24) such projects, only 1 has ever transitioned to free, and that took the people of the state calling for the impeachment and firing of everyone, and I mean everyone, in that state's department of transportation. Why where the citizens so mad? The project had already made back 10x the cost of the financing and construction, and the state was raising, not lowering, the state another $5.

All the rest of the projects have already paid off their costs as well. But the state refuses to transition them. In all cases, the state "expanded" the initial project repeatedly, but you can only improve bridges so much without tearing the whole bridge down and starting again, and you can only upscale a road so far. Once the projects ran out of improvements, the states just refused to transition the toll projects to free because it "couldn't survive without that major revenue coming in from the citizens."

Yeah.

So remember, nothing is more permanent in government than temporary measures and taxes and fees, no matter what the politicians claim.

Im a fan of local food production, and I feel that could solve PART of the problem you mentioned.

I am on the fence on raising state sales tax. However, I do agree with you that it would also be a good way to raise for funds for infrastructure.

As I have said before, we really do need to start to put our taxes into what they are SUPPOSED to be used for, which is maintaining things like our roads.

Which (the last part of the last paragraph), is good that we use less gasoline, correct? Or am i missing something here?

That's because, as a politician, you don't get any publicity out of fixing a pothole or maintaining a road or bridge. But build a new road or bridge, and you get a lot of publicity, and you can brag about that as an actual achievement of getting things done when running for reelection. You can't brag about bridges NOT falling down and roads still being travelable just because you happen to be in office. People expect that out of their mostly incompetent politicians after all.

In a way, both. However, we also need to put the money we pay our taxes with, to good use.

Im not saying to implement hundreds of new tolls, but to simply think about its economic impact.

Then that is not at the fault of that state, but at the fault of the company that promised it go to go free. At that point, a promise from said company is worthless.

This country needs a massive infrastructure overhaul.

Politicians need to get their shit together. I think that is something everyone here can agree on, no matter your position on the topic at hand.

Okay shit. I accidentally closed this tab instead of switching tabs after writing a long part 3.

Please write it again if you can, I am interested in hearing that rest of what you have to say. You have been a very informative commentator, and have changed my views a bit.

When a state uses less gasoline, the revenue from gas taxes go down. Since the state has budgeted that money stream as lasting forever and only increasing, this puts the state budget in a bigger deficient than it would be if people were still driving cars that only got 5 miles to the gallon. The state's response is always to raise taxes across the board to recapture that "lost" revenue. When I say, across the board, I mean they inevitably call for more gas taxes along with raising taxes on property, sales, and every other major tax the state already has. And after suffering this set back a few times, they start calling for major new taxes on every car registered on the state (ie, huge taxes on your car's license) as well as a flat general usage fee on the roads to make sure that even walkers, joggers, and bicycle riders are paying to use the state roads. This usage fee is to be applied to all citizens who aren't dead, payed at the time of state tax time. That's right, pop a baby, pay road usage fee for the baby. That's what several state legislatures are trying to pass in the dark to make up for the lost gasoline taxes now that cars have gotten so efficient at not guzzling gasoline.

It is the politicians, not the toll project, that makes the promise and are in charge. It is the politicians preventing the project from going from toll to free, because it is the politicians that like that revenue stream.

Remember, these toll projects are extension of the state, being ran and managed by quasi-NGOs for the state. But its still all state property, and all the toll project's employees are state workers.

Politicians have their shit together. They know what gets them elected (being seen as getting things DONE) and what doesn't (filling the potholes on state road 7).

Dumbest post on Sup Forums this week.

1. There are taxes on income, corporations, and food already
2. For some reason, retards are brainwashed into thinking the less money actual citizens have, the better. The us doesnt "gain money" unless its importing more assets than debt.
3. Dont use the word "infrastructure" and then complain about gentrification.

Alright, fair point. In my mind, a bit overdone, but still, a fair point to consider.

Ah, I apologize, I must have read it wrong, or misunderstood the meaning.

Eliminate property tax and I could get on board.

Here are some misc arguments against public roads that might appeal to hippies.

>They increase the number of cars on the road, increasing pollution.
>They decrease mass transit and less polluting forms of travel.
>Urban sprawl caused by public roads means more standalone (read inefficient) housing.
This means more deforestation in terms of urban sprawl, but also in terms of felling the trees that these houses are made out of. This also means more lawns to mow, more gutters to clean, more roofs to redo, and more electricity spent on heating and cooling. It's not clear that this is the best use of manpower.

>They make local economies compete with global economies
A local organic strawberry farmer must compete with a megafarmer from across the country. I would argue that it's more economically efficient for every region to produce most of its own food. We're currently subsidizing inefficient food production.

>They allow city people to move into the country without being self-sufficient.
The point of living in the country is that you don't need to go into town as often due to your self sufficiency. In a system of private roads, the country would certainly have worse roads than it does today (as it did before public roads). They would probably be single lane and gravel would be more common. I love the countryside, but I don't think it should be subsidized.

part 3/n

Part 4 will sketch out the pragmatics of what a system of private roads might look like.

I have mixed feelings and ideas on that subject, so Im gonna stay on topic here, but glad to have you on board.

Get bent you fucking faggot. The localities have more than enough money from sales and property taxes, they just put it all into gaudy over-priced architecture for public buildings and schools and stupid events instead of doing their god damn jobs

Ironic you mention schools, because most of those are both underfunded, and have horrible wages that they pay their educators. Also, most of the money goes to their bukkake parties.

Did I mention teacher wages? No. In fact, the mismanagement of school funds by localities is all the argument I need to say that they should not be allowed to increase taxes further, they literally cannot responsibly handle the money.

Thats the problem though, isnt it? If you cut off their funding, then you have the schools go into such utter disarray, that it stunts the educational growth of future leaders of that city, state, or even government.

pffft. All the actual future leaders need is the books and internet access, the latter of which they usually have at home anyway. Smart kids basically teach themselves from middle school on.

Tax revenues in the U.S. is enormous, and would be enough if politicians could be beaten into spending it responsibly.

What Private Roads Will Look Like:

Tolls will be commonplace, but not universal.

>If you privatize the roads, everyone will put up a roadblock in front of his house and charge 100$ to pass.
No lie, this is extremely likely in the days immediately following privatization. It would seem that for all their problems, public roads win here. But look closer. Suppose you're in a cul-de-sac and your neighbor up the street creates a roadblock. What can you legally do?

Firstly, you might pay a neighbor even further up the street to selectively roadblock such bad neighbors. This is not a perfect solution. Irrational neighbors are not uncommon. Even if it's in his interest to settle, he may persist. This is why special measures must be taken during privatization.
In today's world, every realtor secures an easement or access to a public road before the sale happens. Additionally, when you buy a home, you purchase "title insurance". In tomorrow's world, a realtor might secure a guarantee of access to a network of roads within a certain price range.

An even better solution would be to incorporate.
During privatization, the state creates a corporation for every road or logical unit of roads, and assigns stock to the previous users of these roads. This way, you have a guarantee of access to your roads and you earn dividends when other people use your roads. In this system, irrational roadblocks a full buyout of every shareholder.

>Privatized government, is still government, but with no democratic restraint.

I'm describing a system where the people who use the roads are the actual owners.
Even if the roads were privatized without also incorporating, user-owned corporations would spring up and eventually take over.

part 4/n

And I need to go now, so food for thought

I agree, however in today's world, one needs things like a high school diploma (at least) in order to get places in life (successfully).

Now, I agree with your statement, and I wish that reform was just around the corner, however with old minds still in power, it will probably be at least a decade or two until there is a dramatic shift in the current mindset of our leader/s. Even with a new age of leaders doesn't guarantee that change would happen.

irrational roadblocks >require< a full buyout of every shareholder.

>one needs things like a high school diploma (at least) in order to get places in life (successfully).
Well yeah, if you don't have a highschool degree you're either an illegal immigrant or an actual retard

I have an intuition that some rampant corruption on the state-level is going on in Pennsylvania. Some racket has to be present because for amount of our money going to infrastructure our infrastructure is fucking shit.

Although I agree that infrastructure is always a reasonable, and net positive investment rampant inefficiency of my state is causing a stench.

>Washington
Lol what infastructure.
The only thing I see them building is sound barriers because the NIMBY's complained loud enough

Are you in Topeka?

>to help pay for infrastructure
Fucking triggered. Infrastructure spending is what like 5-10% of any given state's expenses. They aren't collecting the tax for infrastructure.

We should have a White Tax for all us white cavebeasts so our melanin-enhanced superiors can get their reparations.

1. Never thought of that before

2. But, wouldnt that create the mentality of being able to block those that block bad neighbors, and then it would cost you 3 days pay just to go home at night. That just doesnt work.

3. Ah yes, just like cable pricing. Private roads are ok, until the owners of such roads and such become increasingly greedy, and then you cant even walk anywhere without getting fucked in the ass by people demanding money. This is where the idea falls apart, unless you instate a rebid every 3-5 year law, so that way a new monopoly isnt formed.

4. On paper that sounds nice, but in reality it would be a lot harder to accomplish.

5. Yes, but wouldnt that make it easier to merge with other "user owned companies", and then you're back at square 1?

This. You guys also have too many projects, with too little companies and inspectors.

I believe that's called a payroll tax.

Sage. Go fuck yourself commie.

Visit Washington and you'll take that back pretty quickly. The amount of dams there is quite startling!

Nice to meet you as well.

Are you a mental case, or just being ironically retarded?

>Thinking they actually spend it on what they say they do
>not being closer to 40%

Topkek

Wichita fag?

All that shit got built decades ago
We do have a decent road system but it just can't handle literally everyone commuting 20+ miles in their own car, and the plan for having some decent light rail linking Seattle to Tacoma isn't supposed to be finished for another few decades
They should be prioitizing the fuck out of that

My state IL tried that with all sugar and people just went to IN like they always do anyway. You are just moving incentives around which is a large detriment to the poor. Nice work

That's your city engineers fault. Write a letter

Thats not how it works. As you said, they got built decades ago. Even with NOBODY commuting, there is still natural factors to think of. Wind, Snow, Rain, sleet, slush, extreme heat and cold, these are all factors to take into account.

Yes, I agree. We need more trains and track!

My point is our transport infastructure didn't grow to meet the insane population growth we've gotten
The Seattle area is essentially the new silicon valley and the roads are still mostly what we had in the middle of the last century
My hope is that Seattle can get someone decent in control to un fuck everything, but past experience hasn't proven they can ever elect anyone competent

What does a road corporation do?

A road corporation will handle tolls and maintenance. It may do this directly, but it's likely that homeowners won't want to bother.

Instead, it will likely lease its property to a road management company. The road management company will take care of the details of running a profitable road. It will decide what the optimal rate is (and it will already have a large amount of data to make this decision with). It will set up automated toll collection. It will perform maintenance. And most importantly, it will grant access to its pre-existing network of private roads and negotiate with other road management companies for access.

A road management company will probably try to get away with doing minimal road maintenance except with high-volume roads. This can be fixed by adding a simple extra clause in the lease contract, and the shareholders have every incentive to do so.

A neat side effect of such a private system will be the gradual disappearance of cul-de-sacs and no-outlet neighborhoods. The main purpose of these things is to decrease the efficiency of the road network, reducing traffic and noise in the neighborhood. People don't like thru-traffic in their neighborhood, but if this traffic is paying tolls, residents might be happy to allow it, and this increases the efficiency of the network.

Underrated post.

I have always been in favor of taxing gas and other luxuries instead of something like income. Gas tax should also increase public transit and biking which is healthier for the people and the environment.

Final part

How high will tolls be?

It will vary widely. The ideal rate for most situations is the one that maximizes profit. There's a tradeoff between rate and volume of traffic. High rates reduce traffic, while low rates make traffic more likely.

There's a certain traffic phenomenon that most people understand intuitively: if you have too many vehicles on a certain road, the speed of the traffic drops to a crawl. Road management companies will understand that too much traffic density actually reduces the throughput of the road, hurting both profits and drivers. To compensate, the road management company will do its best to cap the amount of traffic by raising rates appropriately. We've seen this in public toll systems already, but I want to emphasize that it's not just a moneygrabbing tactic, but it actually increases the efficiency of a road network.

There are numerous exceptions to this rule. Neighborhoods might have high tolls do discourage non-shareholders from entry. Stores and shopping malls will pay road companies to reduce or even eliminate their tolls nearby. One unintuitive phenomenon which I won't explain here is negative tolls, which might be seen during rush hour.

My final observation is that a "road stock market" would probably arise. Certain roads stocks will be very liquid.

Okay I'm going to answer some questions now.

>2. Unless you were to go on a massive shopping trip, or do something that would net you a ton of money, such an amount that one would have to pay is not conducive to the average user/commuter.

This is comparing apples and oranges. Our entire real estate market would look different under private roads. The average user/commuter would live much closer to the city and likely have access to mass transit.

>3. One could bring this up at a government meeting (city or state), or they could donate to the mode of transportation of their choice. I myself am a huge fan of japan's and china's bullet-trains, and think they are an economically sound idea.

Did you know Japan actually has a great system of private transportation infrastructure? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_railway_companies_in_Japan
They have private railways, subways, elevated rail, and most interestingly for me, they have a pretty decent system of expressway highways. I didn't cover how zoning laws affect private roads, but Japan has looser zoning laws than we do in many places.

> Suppose you're in a cul-de-sac and your neighbor up the street creates a roadblock. What can you legally do?
Slap you for being an idiot. You wouldn't own the road infront of your house, it would be owned by the home-owners associations or a corporation actually capable of repairs and maintenance, to which you'd pay membership fees. It would be much easier to transfer ownership from state to corporation or home-owners associations taking over responsibility than you going into some leftist fantasy of AnCap being an all out MadMax war with your neighbors.
>In tomorrow's world, a realtor might secure a guarantee of access to a network of roads within a certain price range.
This also doesn't make sense. All the roads are going to be purchased up and will keep getting consolidated. Just like business in the current world. No switch is going to magically flip and change current practices. If home-owners associations and corporations don't take over roads, they'll be owned by a natural monopoly, just like the electric and water companies. There isn't room for everyone to compete with roads, just like power lines and water lines.

How old are you? I'm just asking.

Fuck off Chris Christie posting threads on Sup Forums isn't going to make everybody in this shithole state stop hating you

How about we make it illegal for Congress to raid the funds for infrastructure. You can raise the taxes all you want, but it doesn't stop the actually problem of our highway fund being hijacked for other issues.

Gas is $3per gallon here in NY.

>2. But, wouldnt that create the mentality of being able to block those that block bad neighbors, and then it would cost you 3 days pay just to go home at night. That just doesnt work.

Only if you have irrational neighbors. I only mention this as a worst case scenario. Depending on how things are privatized, this will never be a problem for 99.9% of non-retarded people.

>You wouldn't own the road infront of your house, it would be owned by the home-owners associations or a corporation actually capable of repairs and maintenance, to which you'd pay membership fees.
Exactly. I only described one possible system, but there are many good systems like this.

>This also doesn't make sense. All the roads are going to be purchased up and will keep getting consolidated.
No, because many roads will not be profitable.
Also, people can certainly choose to sell their road shares off, but there's no reason this would happen with every single person. People care a lot about the value of their houses, and losing access to a road could turn a $500k house into a $40k house.
This "natural monopoly" meme is a leftist meme. Monopolies are neither good nor bad. Having an income you don't fear losing is what's bad.

Lmao asking my age.

Perhaps we should instead charge a border crossing tax of $100 for any non citizen to enter the country. This would be charged everytime one crossed. If you are a Mexican national who crosses into San Diego every day to work, you would have to pay the fee every time. Likewise, all tourists from Europe or anywhere would have to pay the fee.

I forgot to mention an important argument here The reason I brought up title insurance was in analogy to access insurance. An access insurer would agree to buy back your home if you ever lost access to it from a certain network. If you lost access, in the worst case, the insurer would send a helicopter. Such an insurer would put in a lot of legwork to secure agreements with neighbors and road companies. They might buy options to prevent buyouts like this.

DONT TOUCH THE FUCKING GAS PRICES OR ILL KILL YOU

Are you all retarded???

>The first gas tax was sold on the idea of using the money to fix the roads
>People buy into it
>gas tax passes
>gov takes the money, still doesn’t fix the roads. Instead uses it for other pet projects
>gov then demands more gas tax to fix roads and resells using same lie
>moron voters believe gov and vote for a raise
>repeat process

Okay I'm going to leave the thread for now, but I hope these posts made an impact on someone. It's within reach to fix so many problems with our cities.