So yesterday, Bush announced that we "won't raise" the gasoline tax $.05 (I put it in quotes, because the Transportation Appropriations committee will make that decision, not him). He feels that, instead of raising a tax, the Senate should "prioritize". In other words, since the transportation budget that he agreed not to veto isn't quite enough money to simply maintain our roads at the status quo, he believes they should magically use that money to improve our roads.
Here's the deal. The US uses 137 billion gallons of gas annually, which translates to just under $7 billion in taxes raised if we raise the gas tax by a nickel. To put that in "you" terms, that's about $5 a week. (assuming 2 weekly fillups for 2 cars at roughly 13 gallons per fillup, and doubling the tax to a dime so the oil company can weather the incredible strain of taking in an extra nickel. IOW, this is an aggressive estimate). (Oh, and let's say you drive a big duallie pickup with a 40 gallon tank and fill up twice a week. That comes to about $8 and a heaping helping of personal responsibility - you chose the big truck, you can pay the bills) $5 a week is about $270 for a 2 car household. George Bush believes this $270 will "affect economic growth", and thus opposes it.
Never mind, of course, that the imploding credit situation in this country is guaranteed to have a negative impact on economic growth - he's not concerned about already strapped folks losing their homes and having their credit destroyed, he's concerned about folks paying a tax. And losing one viente latte a week. That's the deal, folks. We can pay the $5 a week and share the responsibility for restoring our infrastructure to the finest and safest in the world (and get home safely), or we can keep our latte and continue our slide into life-threatening third-world irrelevancy.
Seriously, does anyone think $5 a week is going to "affect economic growth"? That's just bullshit from a President who's afraid to anger his anti-tax zealot bosses in the Party. The cost of saving actual lives, not to mention preventing the economic impact of a broken infrastructure that can prevent the movement of goods, is around $200 billion. That's just to fix our roads, and doesn't take into account our failing steam pipes, sewer systems, eroding electrical grid, etc. $200 billion dollars is 17 months in Iraq. You want to talk about priorities? Get our military spending out of the stratosphere, put our kids in responsible, strategic locations (i.e., not Iraq) with efficiently made weapons and raise a small gas tax, and you've got a safer country with a rebuilt infrastructure. Just like that. But this giant pussy is afraid to ask Americans for an extra 5 cents.
You think collapsing bridges don't impact economic growth? Did you know that more than 500 bridges failed in the U.S. during the 90's? Wanna guess if the loss of those access points affects the ability to move commerce? Luckily, most of those bridges, like most things, gave warning before they failed - you know, warnings like the Alaskan Way Viaduct is giving that we'll ignore until it collapses on some nice tourists from Illinois. But the time is coming when what happened in Minnesota will be more and more frequent. Our system can only age so much before it fails.
So that you see where Bush is coming from in his no new taxes stance (and in case you're wondering if the GOP is already circling the wagons to protect their ideology from any fact), the Investor's Business Daily led the way with an editorial blaming this on state legislature's spending priorities. You see, in their world, we're enjoying a "Bush boom" and surging tax revenues. Well, we are certainly enjoying a boom in service sector jobs. But those tax revenues? They're not up because of the economy (which is failing AGAIN, btw, thanks to the economic ideas the IBD has promoted, like, ahem, subprime lending and the bankruptcy bill). No, they're coming from the increased sales taxes, service fees and property taxes that states and municipalities have had to levy thanks to the GOP's massive cuts in state funding. You want to talk priorities, IBD? How about deciding to cut taxes on wealth while raising taxes on work, and depriving local governments of the money they need to repair this infrastructure. Check this out:
But cities, towns, counties and states aren't spending on unsexy projects like bridge and highway infrastructure, which benefit everyone. No, they're focusing their efforts on entitlements, opting for easy votes over public safety. When the time comes for infrastructure spending, funds get diverted instead to day care centers, "affordable housing" and other pork — not bridges, ports and roads.
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Nevertheless, something failed that will probably require more spending for infrastructure. The latter is not as sexy as day care centers, bilingual education or global warming boondoggles. But it's far more badly needed.
The fucking gall. Guess why we need that affordable housing? Because of the increased number of people living in poverty thanks to this administration's economic policies - you know, the IBD's "Bush boom". Yay, I've got a job at Wendy's! Now I can live in a shit apartment and drop my kids off at the 10% subsidized day care where I hope they won't be molested, while my boss writes off his capital gains. Thanks, George Bush! To call affordable housing and day care for the millions of people Bush's policies keep in poverty "pork" shows an appalling disregard for traditional American principles.
Well, all the bilingual education, global warming investment and affordable housing spending in this country combined falls far short of the money needed to fix our infrastructure - and I think anyone who understands our system of government, common human decency, and simple responsibility to our own nation can see that one need not be sacrificed for the other. Unfortunately, George Bush and the anti-tax zealots just don't see it that way. Get used to collapsing bridges.