http://www.wpbf.com/nationalnews/28765836/detail.html

Apparently the latest word is the Tea Party will fight to eliminate the federal tax on gas, which partly goes to fund mass transit, and have it handled completely by the states.  This would run in opposition to Chamber of Commerce and GM, which actually would like to see the gas tax increased.  I also recall reading that the Tea Party folks are up in arms also at alternatives to the gas tax going to pay for the roads also.

"The Davis-Bacon law increases the cost of new roads, bridges etc. by 25% to 33%," Grover Norquist, head of the advocacy group Americans for Tax Reform, said referring to the law that stipulates how much workers on federal projects need to be paid. "Much money is siphoned off to pay union workers in subway systems or to build bike paths....not roads."

Norquist didn't say if he'll use his considerable influence among Republicans to attempt to kill the gas tax next month, but did say "we should move now, or soon, to allow all states to raise and keep their own gas taxes to build and fix roads."

And here is an article on a Tea Party site to bring attention to the alternative way to fund roads being paid for.

http://www.teaparty.org/article.php?id=691

somebody present an argument cause i'm all out.

I like those guys more with every article I read on them.

We need European version of this movement to stop all the bullshit going in EU parliament which result in constantly increasing costs of life due to new ecological/social/whatever else they can invent taxes.

makes sense to me. If the feds want to raid the gas tax for other uses (suprise suprise the feds just doing what they want with your taxes) why not just take that money away and leave it up to states like it should of been in the first place. I hope the states start trying to get more power from the feds.

Thats generally the mantra of the Tea Party. Less federal government, and more state power.

If you are unfamiliar with mass transit in America, it is a boondoggle. I understand it works in countries such as Europe, but due to population densities, most systems incur significant losses. For example, the government has been covering Amtrack's losses for decades, costing taxpayers billions of dollars a year in what amounts to nothing more than subsidies.

States are the ones that invest in infrastructure. Each state has its own gas tax, and is directly responsible for administration of roads, and their populace.

To pay for the trains in the Mid-Hudson area of NY, the MTA got the state to pass a tax on each employee an employer hires in the area.  This is ALL THE WAY along the rail line, from Poughkeepsie to NYC.  The tax correlates one to one with an employer hiring, and definitely would deter employment.  It fails to take account for where people commute also.  If anyone can find a documented case of someone taking a train from Westchester to work in Poughkeepsie, let me know.

....Which shows you that subsidies (taking money to pay for a given project that is likely unsustainable from an economic vantage point) doesn't work. Almost every train system works that way. I've ridden all kinds of great trains like San Fransisco (BART), and Portland (Tri-Met) and they take significant losses in revenue each and every year because they simply aren't sustainable. This isn't to say mass transit always never works, but it shouldn't be pushed on people and in areas that it isn't sustainable unless you stack the deck with subsidies as you mentioned.

Its the same reason our Governor Kaisch killed the various light rail bills in Ohio. We were going to get $500 million in federal funding for a Cinci to Cleveland corridor along I-71. The problem with such a plan is that once the money is spent on the rail, who pays for maitenance? We do. And we'd lose hundreds of millions like we have on the turnpike (which is still about $500 million in the red, and is being privatized this year, which will make the government money for the first time in history).

Well, if they would of did it sooner, maybe we wouldn't of lost our Triple A credit Rating.

I wonder if the Tea Party wants to cut it for the reason a lot of people who aren't libertarians or conservative want to get rid of it.

Which is, local raising of funds ends up more efficient, because government funds are handed out poorly, and based on whoever asks hardest, so you end up with a bunch of inefficient "Bridges to nowhere" and roads that are built, but then never maintained cause nobody in the communities wanted or needed them anyway.

Well, end result of doing this will  be that poor regions will have worse roads, and more wealthy regions better roads, if they decide to maintain roads, will end up having better roads.  The concept of a nationwide highway system has no guarantee of being maintained.  Maybe this would be for the best anyhow, because the building of the national highway system did result in a shifting of America towards an increase use of petroleum.  This increased use made sense at the time when America was the world's leading producer of petroleum.

I think a part of this, politically, is that Washington threatens states with mandates being passed by withholding highway funds if they don't accept it.  The use of funding is a bribe to get compliance by states:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061004163905AASP9cg

I would have others look into this, because my memory has me remembering federal funding for highway funds being withheld to push through mandates, for some reason, I thought went beyond just highway funds.

That already happens.

Truth is, federal spending on roads used to be a lot smaller then it is now, and has moved more and more towards more federal based spending.

A lot of areas are already intentionally graveling a lot of their roads rather then pay the upkeep costs.

Roads are a real pain to figure out how to fund properly, some people suggest that you base it on straight population but that ignores the areas that have massive amount of people driving through them etc.