In ,
wrote:
On Mar 29, 7:04 pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
wrote:
On Mar 29, 5:14?pm, wrote:
On Mar 29, 7:02 am, " wrote: feds
should loosen smog regulations on gasoline and additives, to help
bring price down a little

temporarily suspend the federal gasoline tax

That gas tax isn't enough to make a difference. ?RAISE the tax, and
use it for alternative development, efficient mass transit, etc.

unrestrained higher costs of gasoline means less spending on
everything else.............

Exactly. Fuel use is virtually inelastic. Price goes up, people pay it or
starve, lose their jobs, or suffer other dire consequences. Gone are the
days when people "went for a drive." Virtually all travel is a necessity.

As for using increased tax revenues to fund, say, mass transit. It takes
five years to lay track. So 100% of the drivers in my town would be charged
extra amounts so that five years from now, 2% of the population will have
the opportunity to use rail transit? Really bad trade-off. Really bad.

The alternative is that in 5 years, you'll still be paying huge
amounts for gas, but you WON'T have mass transit. That's even worse.
We screwed up mass transit a long time ago, and correcting that will
be costly, but not impossible.
Furthermore, you don't have to have rails for MT. You CAN use busses,
which don't take anywhere near 5 years to implement, and the routes
can be changed immediately at no cost as situations warrant. Not the
best answer, but it is and answer.

Keep in mind where some transit tax money goes...

1. In many older big cities, the transit workers get big union benefits
that most other workers have no hope of getting. Such as health insurance
for entire family 100% paid by the employer or close to that.

In Philadelphia, it was some big union giveback around 2005 for the
employees with over 24 or 28 or whatever months seniority to pay 1%
or whatever pittance towards family health insurance premiums. (Covered
are employee and "qualifying dependents").
Despite this "giveback", cost increases in health insurance premiums
for employees with over 2 years seniority are 99% paid by the employer.

During the first 2 years, employees pay 30% of premiums during the first
year, 20% during the second year (as of 2005 and the following contract).

I managed to find an agreement for the current TWU Local 234 labor
contract, though I cannot quite guarantee that this is the actual current
contract as opposed to a proposed one:

http://www.twu.com/intstaff/contract...TDContract.pdf

The workers also get pensions!

Any corrections to any misinterpretations by me of this, please post or
e-mail to me at
(I will post all factual corrections to anything I said regarding this
labor contract as a result of any private e-mails I receive regarding this
labor contract.)

2. I do remember ongoing proposals for a rail line to be built (or
upgraded) along where one already ran, northwest from Philadelphia along
the Schuylkill river past Norristown. A big part was electrifying that
route. Price tag was a billion or two as of a few years ago.
The dollar amount sounds to me awfully high to get a nice little light
rail line up and running. I suspect this was going to be a big pork
barrel public works project to keep employed for a little while many
people in the politically powerful building construction trades unions at
their top dollar rates.

************

I think we need more open debate as to who the politically powerful few
of the unions nesting in older big cities are fighting for, and who they
are fighting against!

This does manage to tie in to political battling for more-vs-less
spending of tax dollars towards mass transit, as well as the battles to
get these tax dollars spent towards where they will do the most good vs.
towards where the political powers that be exert force to spend *our*
money on!

***********

I am a fan of mass transit, and I am a bit "socialist". I do see
fairness in "to each according to their needs, from each according to
their abilities". However, I also believe that people earning a living
largely deserve to not be taxed from most or even half of what they work
for or otherwise earn, and that their productivity and increases thereof
should reward those that successfully strive more than those who don't!

So I see existence of need to subsidize mass transit, but not with tax
dollars being spent to give its workers a hugely better deal than that
achieved by most of the workers riding mass transit or workers paying for
it through taxes!

I see need for more open debate in this area!

***********

- Don Klipstein )