Do you think that a tax levied last spring would have saved a bridge that, to all eyes who watch this sort of thing, had little indication that collapse was imminent?

No, I am saying precisely the opposite. :confused:

Whether or not the bridge collapsed as a result of negligence has yet to be seen, the point is that Federal money for the new bridge implies that the state of Minnesota is incapable of maintaining or creating new infrastructure. The stadium example illustrates that it is.

These are notable problems, but I would still say that the corporation has an incentive for income. If a bridge collapses or a road becomes unusable, then the corporation and its shareholders stop collecting income from the damaged infrastructure. Governments do not have this incentive, because government income is acquired through taxation.

It doesn't matter if repairing a bridge is cheaper than constructing a new one, since governments do not have to produce wealth.

The bridge in question was part of the Interstate Highway System, which recieves federal money.

By specifically setting up this corporation as a non-profit, you've removed the income motive. Any profits the corporation are subsequently redistributed to the "shareholders" based on their usage of the roads. This means that people who use the roads less get less money back than those who use it more, if they are able to get anything back at all, since it would stand to reason that those who use it more would get first priority on refunds. But, however money you get back, since you're paying the money in in the first place, your net income would still be a negative.

The negative would only grow if the corporation determined that it needed to retain some of those profits for expansion of the system, as the construction costs for building the expansions are factored in, as are the maintainence costs afterward. If the amount you drive doesn't increase, you end up getting less money back.

All of this is, however, based on the assumption that the corporation actually generates any profits to be redistributed in the first place. If it operates at a loss, the amount the users paid becomes loss, and would only increase as tolls go up to make up for corporate loss. During that time, the system couldn't expand if it needed to, since it wouldn't have the money on hand and wouldn't for some time.

This bridge in Minneapolis was considered deficient for seventeen years. What do you mean that no one is using the shitty roads? Tolls will still be made until you can't get over the road without a 4x4.

It doesn't, which is the point. If it's broke and you can't fix it, don't.

If anything, with how much you hate the spending, the stadium example only shows that voters can't vote on the right spending and that they can't elect officials that will get them the proper maintenance, and I have no idea why you don't think those same shortcomings wouldn't transfer to a populace selecting a board to handle the problem.

Could you clarify on this statement a bit? Because it sounds to me as if you're implying that we shouldn't try to fix a broken system.

You shouldn't try to fix a broken system that you can't fix. Yes.

I understand the income is a negative, I think you're confusing the need for income as a profit incentive (or confusing what I said, I mean).

If a bridge collapses, then the corporation can't extract tolls from it, obviously. Replacing the bridge would be far more expensive than simply repairing it. So, in order to avoid the greatest negative, there's an incentive to keep the bridges in good condition.

Governments don't have this incentive, because if funds are required for a project, they are simply taken. There's no incentive for a government to avoid the greatest negative, since they're always making revenue through taxation. The result places road maintenance at a low priority, because it isn't in the government's interest to keep them well maintained.

If the bridge collapses for the corporation, then tolls have to be raised in order to finance its replacement. If the bridge collapses for the government, then it's no sweat off their back.

In both cases, the public/shareholders are losing money, but in the case of the corporation there is at least an incentive for the shareholders and the board to avoid the greatest cost with proper maintenance.

I meant to say as in your shitty roads. Commuters coming in from out of state are going to avoid the worst infrastructure if they can, and poor road conditions will encourage locals to avoid travel which extracts a toll. The end result being that you lose commerce.

You live in, what, Arizona? What are the conditions of your roads? Because without many bridges, 25% approval may actually be the appropriate amount of spending.

That's hideously defeatist, particularly when we're talking about an untested method. I'd like to see more solutions to the problem, which is why I made this thread, and why I didn't put out Paron's example in the opening.

I'm guessing that there's some non-privatizing solutions to the problem of infrastructure priority, but there is apparently no solution, according to you.

As Styphon pointed out, the bridge is payed for with Federal money and maintained by the State. I'd argue that there was a lack of incentive for voters in the case of Minnesota because the money more than likely isn't extracted from themselves.

With state gas taxes you can get an inkling of where the money goes, but with a Federal money pool who the fuck knows?

Then why do you / the article writer keep holding it up as an example of excessive pork-barrel spending in the context of this bridge? If you don't think it has anything to do with the bridge, it shouldn't be part of the discussion. You are being intellectually dishonest.

Arizona's problems are roads that need frequent repair due to the intense heat and roads that can't handle the amount of traffic put on them, meaning widing projects and strengthening everything underneath them. Arizona has some of the worst traffic in the country and one of the highest traffic death rates.

Plus, we own part of what is probably the most important interstate highway in the country: I-10.

We actually have many bridges (they are relatively new, however). Dry rivers still have to be crossed.

Nah, I wasn't saying that. I don't believe this is a workable solution or at least worth the effort it would take to make the changes. There might be a modest increase in quality, at best, assuming everything works absolutely perfectly. As many have stated, this will most likely just lead to more of the same.

You mean it doesn't cost the government any greater amount of money to build a new bridge vs. repair existing bridges? I.. what?

you're fucking trolling

I thought you meant a new tax being levied, since I was referring to Airanach talking about an increase in taxes.

Alright look at it this way:

Let's say I accrue a tab at a local bar. It's been increasing for quite a while and it's been called in. I can't pay the tab, so I mug somebody and use the money I stole to pay it off. In this case, my tab is paid, but I lose nothing. The bar is paid, I take care of the debt, and the only person at a loss is the guy I mugged.

Governments do not lose money because they don't produce wealth. If budgets dip into deficits, then the deficit is financed by either an increase in taxes, buying debt, or printing money. In all three cases the government loses nothing, because it doesn't finance the deficit. Taxpayers do.

It costs taxpayers more to rebuild a bridge, and it costs the government nothing.

You're still not answering my question about road conditions.

If the graph you provided is any indication, the state is certainly on the ball in regards to bridges.

I was kinda hoping that somebody would channel Al Gore's lockbox, to be honest. I think it's a shame, though, that the opportunity to test potential solutions will likely never present themselves in light of general apathy and lack of debate.

Oh, brady. You think taxes are like mugging people and that the government accrues defecit without any thought about the future. Sure, it might seem like that at times, but things are more complicated than that!

So, what are you saying, that bridges are the only thing that applies in your scenario here? That the interstate highway system is perfectly fine if not for those pesky rivers it has to cross? That, infrastructurally, everything else is doin' great and doesn't need money set aside in federal and state budgets?

Or do you just want these special non-government governments on everything?

All this shareholder idea is doing is creating a highly complicated second political system JUST for road maintenance. Rather than fancy tolls and such, set up semi-independant transportation ministers and use some of the taxes from licenses, or gasoline. So much simpler. But as noted, you don't avoid the political element.

You could try to pass a law requiring maintenance to be funded before building a new project. But then if there are bad times, and people let maintenance languish a bit, they're going to run up such a tab they won't want to build anything.

A method that works on the small scale is the media. In a few towns I've lived in, the local paper would once a month shame the municipal government into filling in potholes. Similarily, maybe an advocacy group could hire a few civil inspectors to shame/scare the governments into action.

So the states with the most bridges have the most problems with bridges? HOLY SHIT ALERT THE MEDIA. Pittsburgh has more bridges than Venice and it's had a shrinking population for the past 60 years.

Also, which taxes are they talking about? State taxes in Pennsylvania are actually pretty low, sales tax is 6% for most of the state (except for food and clothing where it's 0%), and property taxes and such vary greatly between counties and municipalities.

Also, having been a frequent traveler on toll roads I have to say that it really doesn't make them any better to drive on than typical state roads. I just drove on I-80, a free road, and it was in better condition than the PA Turnpike which I pay around $16 each way to drive across most of the state.

Finally, Brady, it's not like this is something new where a city is giving money to a sports team to stay in their city. It's a pretty established practice that many teams do when they either feel attendance is dropping or their facilities are lacking. After all, they're using their ability to move to a different city as a bargaining chip. What's so terrible about that?

OF COURSE! It's more complicated than that! Thank you, Lurker, for reminding me that paying taxes under the threat of imprisonment isn't like a mugging, and that the government doesn't defecit spend without thinking about the consequences.

Where would I be if you didn't speak to me like a child with meaningless platitudes?

This thread, in case you didn't notice, concerns a bridge collapse. Bridges possess a certain import since sinkholes are such a rarity.

You're also skirting my question again. What would you say the state of roads and highways are in your state?

I think media watchgroups are the best solution, but it just doesn't happen enough.

Well, so long as we're using anecdotal evidence, I use the Indian Nation Turnpike to travel towards Eastern Texas, and it's in much better shape than the highways and city roads in my immediate area.

It's basically like a Union that oversteps its bounds. These teams don't necessarily need bigger and better facilities, they need to win games. Cycling through stadiums every 5-8 years is a waste of taxpayer money. They have to threaten to leave, because otherwise nobody in their right mind would think that a new stadium is justifiable.

It's strong-arming millions out of taxpayers, and a disgusting form of rentseeking.

Just because it occurs frequently does not make it okay.

It isn't.

In general, they don't.

your libertarianism is the political equivalent of vore fetish. You sound like you're been out there and tried all the other things, but luckily it's imaginary so you don't actually have to do anything.

You're right, it isn't, but that wasn't the comparison I was trying to draw. Taxation is theft, and whether or not you believe it is so depends on how much stock you put into the Social Contract. Even then, you should understand why these projects cost the government nothing.

Your liberalism is the political equivalent of a MAD meeting. You claim to know what's best for everybody, but your emotional responses blind you to alternatives and stifle debate before it begins.

I can do this all day, don't start this bullshit. Everything is SO much more complicated. It's so complicated you don't have to explain any goddamn thing.

Oh for fuck's sake.

Paying taxes to government is no more theft than paying tolls to this corporate public works department of yours.

Paying a toll to use a road involves an act of consent. Paying taxes does not involve consent, since the taxes are extracted regardless. Governments do not have to compete for revenue, but a privately owned road does between alternative transit.

What alternative transit? Your proposition involves taking public works away from government and turning it over to a non-profit corporation, which would handle it instead. There was only one of these in the original proposal, which would handle everything the government did. There wasn't any competition. The financial incentives you talked about would be about the corporation not being able to make money off damaged infrastructure, not that they might lose customers to competition.

This idea was pretty fucking stupid to start with; it just gets ever more so as this discussion goes on.

Air, rail, cycling, and mass transit.

You're not addressing what we're arguing, either, that tax is a form of theft and that there's a difference between collecting a toll and extracting a tax.

Unless you're rich and own a helicopter, air travel is a pretty impractical way to get around town. It's also impractical for fairly short distances, like, say, from Houston to Galveston.

I'm including these together since, except for the Northeast, long-distance passenger rail is essentially dead, and that light rail systems in cities are frequently offered by mass transit companies.

However, in your case, you still couldn't escape the Coropration if you used them. The government is responsible for building the infrastructure they use; this duty would be turned over to the Corporation in your model, and the fares you pay to use them would be in part payed to the Corporation to make use of their services.

The fares would also probably rise considerably since tax money wouldn't be made available to keep them low (since taxes are bad), and since they would be competing with the Corporation, the Corporation has no incentive to do anything to help anybody out there.

Which is meaningless if the Corporation owns the mass transit system as well as the roads.

Like air travel isn't practical for short distances, cycling isn't practical for long distances. It would break someone to ride a bike from their home in the suburbs to work in the city, put in their 8 hours a day, and then ride back home five days a week.

And it doesn't escape the Corporation, either; the man in question would be riding his bike on their road, and would concievably be required to pay for the use like a driver would.

Taxes are just as much a payment for services rendered as a toll is. Local taxes, for instance, pay for such things as the police and fire departments. They also pay for keeping my bus fares low.

And, to top it all off, the pay for things like public sanitation and the water system, which are useful for disposing of various forms of waste.

I already told you, crumbling from the heat and not wide enough. You came back and told me that it didn't matter because Arizona didn't have many bridges.

Your idea wouldn't even work here because you can't toll Arizona residents. They would just stop using the pay roads and all the traffic would funnel through city streets, making things even worse.

The way I'm reading his idea, they wouldn't have an alternative. Governments are to be relieved of their road infrastructure, which would then be turned over to this corporation; since cities have governments, too, their roads would likely be privatized along with state and county roads. If there's a road, the Corporation owns it and charges you for its use.

Which reminds me; how much would it cost for the Corporation to buy these roads from their respective governments in the first place?