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Roads? Where we’re going, we won’t have any roads

matthewfcarlson 6y ago
Outline link if you're medium-averse: https://outline.com/9nffJB https://outline.com/9nffJB
dhosek 6y ago
The gas tax has been kept artificially low which is a big part of the problem. The last time the federal gas tax was increased was 1993, and it's not indexed for inflation which would have raised it 77% in the intervening 27 years. Similar stories apply for all the local gas taxes. Illinois had a bill to increase the gas tax in 2019 (I don't know what the fate of it was) but before that hadn't increased its gas tax since 1990 despite, Wikipedia's table of state tax rates noting that Illinois and only Illinois has a gas tax rate that can be adjusted for inflation.
- matthewfcarlson 6y ago
  That's a fascinating point. I wonder if states increasing the gas tax would help the small budgets states offer for roads to be more effective at mitigating the burden to cities and counties. I'm surprised that this is something that's been so low for so long considering the rate property taxes of been going up here in Seattle (on top of home prices increasing massively and the county assessors taking full advantage of it).
  - dhosek 6y ago
    Property taxes have been structured in such a way that annual increases are part of the design. That hasn't stopped anti-tax activists from doing their best to decimate them as well (see California's Prop 13). The acolytes of the anti-tax movement have done a great job of instilling in people the idea that all tax increases are bad, even if they aren't, and even if they're an attempt to make a tax system fairer (see, for example, the current attempt in Illinois to amend the constitution to eliminate the requirement that the state income tax have a single flat rate—I see a lot of people arguing in bad faith to scare people that this will raise their taxes when, in fact, the overall tax increase from the proposed new rates is low and will be a decrease for most residents, but heaven forbid that people with high six figure incomes have to pay more). There's been a destructive movement in this country against any and all taxes for over forty years and the state of roads is just one symptom of that movement.

Outline link if you're medium-averse: https://outline.com/9nffJB https://outline.com/9nffJB

The gas tax has been kept artificially low which is a big part of the problem. The last time the federal gas tax was increased was 1993, and it's not indexed for inflation which would have raised it 77% in the intervening 27 years. Similar stories apply for all the local gas taxes. Illinois had a bill to increase the gas tax in 2019 (I don't know what the fate of it was) but before that hadn't increased its gas tax since 1990 despite, Wikipedia's table of state tax rates noting that Illinois and only Illinois has a gas tax rate that can be adjusted for inflation.

matthewfcarlson 6y ago
That's a fascinating point. I wonder if states increasing the gas tax would help the small budgets states offer for roads to be more effective at mitigating the burden to cities and counties. I'm surprised that this is something that's been so low for so long considering the rate property taxes of been going up here in Seattle (on top of home prices increasing massively and the county assessors taking full advantage of it).
- dhosek 6y ago
  Property taxes have been structured in such a way that annual increases are part of the design. That hasn't stopped anti-tax activists from doing their best to decimate them as well (see California's Prop 13). The acolytes of the anti-tax movement have done a great job of instilling in people the idea that all tax increases are bad, even if they aren't, and even if they're an attempt to make a tax system fairer (see, for example, the current attempt in Illinois to amend the constitution to eliminate the requirement that the state income tax have a single flat rate—I see a lot of people arguing in bad faith to scare people that this will raise their taxes when, in fact, the overall tax increase from the proposed new rates is low and will be a decrease for most residents, but heaven forbid that people with high six figure incomes have to pay more). There's been a destructive movement in this country against any and all taxes for over forty years and the state of roads is just one symptom of that movement.