Thursday, March 20, 2008

Roads for the Rich




This post is by a guest blogger today. Enjoy.

I am a moderate – always have been, always will be. That often is not a good thing to be in the American discourse on politics. No matter what you say as a moderate you are likely to be branded by one side or the other if not both. This disposition is probably a consequence of being a real GenXer – by “real” I mean the generation that was labeled X in the late 80s not because we were extreme but because we were lost between the demographic bubbles of Baby Boomers and the Children of Baby Boomers, we had no public face, no representation.

Back in the 80s and 90s I favored the caution and fiscal restraint of Republican rhetoric (and even the military spending that contradicted the concept of fiscal restraint) over the more unrestrained domestically focused isolationist direction of the Democrats. As a consequence I know I disappointed many friends and family. Now they are shocked, having previously branded me as “Alex Keaton”, that I am more often (though not always) in the Democrat camp on issues of foreign affairs and civil liberties.

Now along comes an issue that makes me wonder if the world (or at least the US) is finally being affected by all those pharmaceutical traces in the drinking water. One that will probably get me labeled a Trotskyite.

First there was the addition of special security lines, manned by TSA personnel, for people flying first class. Being rich means you are not subject to the same inconveniences for security the rest of us must face, obviously. So, paying for those extra TSA people out of tax money to service an elite minority is perfectly reasonable.

Then comes a recent report (“Letting the Market Drive Transportation”, Washington Post, 17 March 2008) indicating that the Department of Transportation, lacking specific legislative guidance to do anything with $1 billion in discretionary funds, has decided to “experiment” in 5 major municipalities by charging tolls during peak traffic hours to ease traffic congestion. I imagine this will be in the form of some decal you will need to purchase on a periodic basis.

Now I am all for reducing emissions, easing commute times, improving quality of life, etc. But instead of funding things that might actually work like a gas guzzler tax (smaller cars on the road is the same as increasing available road miles), new mass transit systems, or even something as radical as banning commuter traffic from 7 pm to 7 am and banning commercial traffic from 7am to 7pm (why not try a different approach in each place and see which has the most positive impact), they (the DoT) choose to tax the working man and woman at a time of spiking fuel prices and an impending (some would say already underway) recession!

The Wall Street Journal should have called the article “Roads for the Rich.”

-ARC (A Radical Centrist)

No comments: