BOB2 Wrote:
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> As wise adults we must face adult responsibilities
> for doing things like fixing our roads, which we
> use, and which have helped make us prosperous,
> mobile, and free. So yeah I gladly support using
> user fees to do it. I have a choice on how much I
> am willing to pay to drive, and the more I
> consume, the more I should pay. That's fair, and
> that's how it's supposed to work with most normal
> things we use....
>
> I have no problem with using some of my taxes to
> make available, or even subsidize services I might
> find useful, like transit, or Amtrak, public
> health, or National Parks, if they can provide a
> net positive value to me, or that cannot
> efficiently be provided by the market conditions,
> or are in market conditions where these services
> may not have the ability to capture the full
> value of the total benefits to society from the
> price alone.
>
> We don't always get the ideal return on our money,
> as shown by fiascos like the CAHSRA, but if we
> don't actually fix our infrastructure, we will end
> up like the Romans. And some time in the distant
> future, Chinese tourists can then come to look at
> the real cool ruins, of our once great road
> system, too.
>
> We don't have the same adult imperative or
> obligation to take half of our income taxes, and
> spend it on the principle and interest, for our
> now good sized deficit, much of which has been
> largely caused by this last set of wars, and the
> ongoing expenses of maintaining a massive military
> to fight them. A vast military enterprise, that
> appears to have been used with no great skill,
> primarily to fight eternal low grade wars in every
> about every failed state we've been able to find,
> for the last 16 years or so. In most cases, in
> places where we have little national interest,
> and, with no real strategic plan to bring about
> "victory", which would be the restoration of peace
> and good order, so we can actually pack up and
> leave these failed states.
>
> Doing that "war without end" thing has been a
> completely optional, expensive, and from every
> measure of "success" in these things, a damned
> wasteful use of my income taxes. These folks we
> have gone to "liberate" never have to take
> responsibility for getting their act together, and
> seem to then blame us, regardless of our often
> naively sincere motives, for their intertribal
> squabbles, backward corruption, and more often
> than not, hate us for even being there.
>
> And, since some of these folks show such gratitude
> for my generous donation and our nations
> sacrifices to their welfare, by stealing much of
> the aid, while playing us off like chumps, and
> picking our pockets, that I just can't wait to see
> how much of my hard earned money we can squander,
> as a nation, in the next $hithole we can
> find.....?
>
> But, I guess you're pretty okay with that, right?
>
> California....on a beautiful Spring day like
> today.... yeah, it's just fine with me..... I
> hope that someday we will see a connection between
> ACE and the stranded investment in the HSR line at
> Chowchilla, that could provide half hourly service
> all day from those Valley cities in and out of the
> Bay area....

I'm all for spending money on infastructre, I just have no faith in my state goverment to responsibly use that money to better our lives though better infastructure, and with the current track record I cannot support the current tax increase. Make some pay cuts in the legislature and cut wasteful spending, lower expenditures on social programs. Do these things and then I'll gladly pay more money at the pump. Until then I like many other who don't feel like they are getting their moneys worth will continue to find ways to move money elsewhere, where it does.


.....Montana based LLC anyone?