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Is it true that the lack of income tax in Texas leads to a surfeit of under-maintained roads? Not that Caltrans is particularly great.

jdhn 4y ago
How would income tax affect roads? That's what the gas tax is for.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Tax revenues are fungible. The government might like to claim otherwise, but push comes to shove and emergency funding is needed, it will come from somewhere.
Bilal_io 4y ago
I live in Texas and I can confirm the roads here are horrible except for streets high end businesses or expensive houses. Even highways are bad.
- wyldfire 4y ago
  > Even highways are bad. This is not my experience near Austin.
  - Bilal_io 4y ago
    I traveled to Austin recently, it was definitely better than Houston but could use a lot of improvements.
- ghufran_syed 4y ago
  i seem to remember the roads in Los Angeles were pretty bad, but most of the sf bay area is pretty good, so a lot probably depends on the income and (in)efficiency of the city that maintains it
vel0city 4y ago
Posing a question with a lot of assumptions baked into it isn't really a great way of starting a conversation. Are the roads in Texas under-maintained? Is that under-maintenance significantly different from other states? Then finally, are income taxes what usually fund roads? All of these things are assumptions built in to your question without having any real evidence of those things necessarily being true. Personally I don't have the answer to those questions, but one shouldn't begin their research making a lot of big assumptions which may or may not be true.
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  Well, I was responding to a Texan troll after all.
hindsightbias 4y ago
I had a rental car wheels bottom out on a road in Highland Park (Dallas). Scraped the air dam all up. Hertz didn't care. It's one of the richest areas in TX. Great public school though. Spanish toll roads are nice too, if you can afford them every day.

jdhn 4y ago

How would income tax affect roads? That's what the gas tax is for.

lotsofpulp 4y ago
Tax revenues are fungible. The government might like to claim otherwise, but push comes to shove and emergency funding is needed, it will come from somewhere.

Bilal_io 4y ago

I live in Texas and I can confirm the roads here are horrible except for streets high end businesses or expensive houses. Even highways are bad.

wyldfire 4y ago
> Even highways are bad. This is not my experience near Austin.
- Bilal_io 4y ago
  I traveled to Austin recently, it was definitely better than Houston but could use a lot of improvements.
ghufran_syed 4y ago
i seem to remember the roads in Los Angeles were pretty bad, but most of the sf bay area is pretty good, so a lot probably depends on the income and (in)efficiency of the city that maintains it

vel0city 4y ago

Posing a question with a lot of assumptions baked into it isn't really a great way of starting a conversation. Are the roads in Texas under-maintained? Is that under-maintenance significantly different from other states? Then finally, are income taxes what usually fund roads? All of these things are assumptions built in to your question without having any real evidence of those things necessarily being true. Personally I don't have the answer to those questions, but one shouldn't begin their research making a lot of big assumptions which may or may not be true.

Apocryphon 4y ago
Well, I was responding to a Texan troll after all.

hindsightbias 4y ago

I had a rental car wheels bottom out on a road in Highland Park (Dallas). Scraped the air dam all up. Hertz didn't care. It's one of the richest areas in TX. Great public school though. Spanish toll roads are nice too, if you can afford them every day.