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From: elg@seismo.CSS.GOV@killer.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.politics
Subject: Re: Road-users paying for it
Message-ID: <8702180605.AA20507@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Wed, 18-Feb-87 01:05:01 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8702180605.AA20507
Posted: Wed Feb 18 01:05:01 1987
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The poster of the above dialog basically argued that he does not
use roads, thus he doesn't want to pay taxes to support roads. Or
something to that effect.

Actually, almost all federal highway construction IS financed by
the people who use the roads. Just look at the gas pump someday...
and notice the excise tax... thus the people who use the road, ARE
paying for the road.

There's a lot of things that I don't want our government doing.  Like
subsidies, boondoggles, huge security agencies, etc...  but let's be
reasonable, government DOES have a purpose in the general realm of
things. The primary one, of course, being to protect me from those who
would rob me of my things, or my life (thus police forces, fire
departments, the Armed Forces if we assume that unfriendly powers
would rape & pillage us otherwise, etc.).  And subsidising or
providing public utilities in areas where otherwise they would be
unprofitable -- e.g. rural areas had no electricity until the Fed.
Govt. set up rural electrical co-op fund, one way Ma Bell was allowed
to keep her monopoly for so long, was by using city dwellers to
subsidise rural phone co.'s, etc. Basically, you CAN say that these
are necessary for the protection of those unfortunate enough to be in
a place where utilities are not commercially economical.

And to a rural dweller, the automobile is the most important
part of his life. Without an automobile, someone living in Castor,
Louisiana (pop. 500), would starve to death -- walking 20 miles to
the nearest store isn't very feasible, especially for the old, 
and 500 people won't support
much of a store, and wouldn't be able to finance a road to take
their product to the nearest city, Shreveport, which is 50 miles
away over hilly terrain (that'll be a few million dollars,
probably!).

I still can't get over these city slickers with their snide
assumptions that life in The Real World is just like it is in
their canyons of concrete and glass.... listen, Los Angeles or
New York isn't the United States, most people still live in cities
of 250,000 or less.

 * Airwick *

-- 

      Eric Green {akgua,ut-sally}!usl!elg, elg%usl.CSNET
        (Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191, Lafayette, LA 70509)
A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain.