Disgusting! Liberals have no qualms about using dead bodies to increase their tax and power base. Have you no shame at all?
You can raise the taxes all you want but it won’t work. That money would never have ended up in the highway fund and you know it. It gets diverted to pet projects on both sides of the aisle.
I agree that infrastructure IS one of the FEW things the government should be managing. I am not a fan of the privatization ideas. It is nice that you can blame that too on Bush, but lets take a look at the two most local Govs. pushing it: Rendell(D) and Corzine(D). They must be secretly damn corporate loving Republicans.
Don’t we already tax gas enough? In Delaware alone, between just state and federal, you are looking at 41.4 cents a gallon. (Source: http://www.delawaregasprices.com/tax_info.aspx)
And for all I know NCC or Wilmington could be collecting additionally on that.
But sure…why not. Why stop at raising it 5 cents? Get us to where you want us to be…sending our entire paycheck to the government. Admit it….that it what you really long after….
Imagine how better off we’d all be if Republicans could feel shame. Forget about the shameful act the invasion of Iraq, and just think about the shameful pork laden $286 Billion highway bill, the one that brought us the Bridge to Nowhere.
That shameful monstrosity was pushed through a Republican Congress and signed into law about the same time the I-35 bridge was determined to be a 50 on a scale of 120 for structural stability.
If Republicans could feel shame they might look at the fact that more people fell off the I-35 bridge than live in the within 100 miles of the Bridge to Nowhere.
Fifty people are going to be served by the Republican’s shameful $200 Million pet project—there were more than that number injured by the bridge collapse in Minneapolis.
The line-item for the Bridge to Nowhere was removed from that bill. But don’t let the facts get in your way.
Do you want to know what’s in the current crop of Appropriations bills? I mean, it’ll kill your argument, but are you interested?
Bridge collapses in Minnesota are not the fault of any political party or ideological group. The shame lies with those who would try to claim that it does.
Bridge collapses in Minnesota are not the fault of any political party or ideological group.
I this case it does Dave that is the whole point.
“No new taxes” is a slogan with real world implicatins as we’ve just seen. All of the Republican solgans which sound good on paper like “Global War on Terror”, “Deficits doesn’t matter” right down to something innocent sounding like “Mission Accomplished” can win votes but at a very high downstream cost.
The 2006 Minnesota Capital Budget allocated $71 million to bridge repair.
You can use your pointy sticks and catchphrases all day long to try and make your point, but it’s highly irresponsible to blame the deaths of people in Minnesota on a political party.
Not that responsible is on the list of adjectives one would use to describe DL.
For half a dozen years, the motto of state government and particularly that of Gov. Tim Pawlenty has been No New Taxes. It’s been popular with a lot of voters and it has mostly prevailed. So much so that Pawlenty vetoed a 5-cent gas tax increase – the first in 20 years – last spring and millions were lost that might have gone to road repair.
Highly irresponsible is a term that comes to mind when I read that.
“You can use your pointy sticks and catchphrases all day long to try and make your point, but it’s highly irresponsible to blame the deaths of people in Minnesota on a political party.”
You need to watch that paranoia since nothing in my post at DE Watch says that the last 20 + years of this bridge’s problems was the exclusive responsibility of the Repubs.
And you might want to watch the hysteria too:
“And if you take every dollar from every citizen, imagine what you could do with that!”
*****
“Disgusting! Liberals have no qualms about using dead bodies to increase their tax and power base. Have you no shame at all?”
I can think of something far more disgusting: When cheapskate conservatives don’t mind the death of dozens of human beings from a bridge collapse all because they want to save themselves a measly 5-10 cents a week when they fill up their cars.
What do you conservatives think? Bridges fix themselves? That paying to repair them happens by magic? That’s what concerns me the most about you conservatives. You don’t live in the real world but in a fantasy world which says that the best way to pay for needful things is to underfund them.
It just like when one your heroes old Wolfowitz (sp?)said the invasion & occupation of Iraq would pay for itself through Iraqi’s oil revenue. How’s that bit of magical thinking going for you?
You tightwads are disgusting & the American people are finally catching on.
all because they want to save themselves a measly 5-10 cents a week when they fill up their cars.
No…conservatives don’t care about lower prices at the pump. They want low gas taxes so people can continue to buy the same amount of gas at war-inflated prices.
Note that the gas tax is a specific amount, not a percentage. So as the price of gas goes up, the percentage collected as tax goes down.
God forbid the gas tax should be raised – people might buy LESS GAS.
“all because they want to save themselves a measly 5-10 cents a week when they fill up their cars.’
Did you miss what I started this off with? It is not a measly 5-10 cents…it is a sizeable 41.8 cents here in delaware (closer to 80-90 cents in NY and CA). And if this were the only tax we pay…then so be it. But lets see, we have local property takes, state property taxes, state income taxes, federal income takes, city wage tax (in some places. See, I realize it doesn’t seem burdensome here in DE because you have it easy here.
In NJ I was paying 6% on every purchase, property taxes that were triple of what I am paying here (Nearly $7,000 dollars a year on what was a $180,000 house, which in Jersey is not big).
When all is said and done at the end of the year many of us pay out between 60 and 70% of income in one tax form or another. So forgive those of us that have a problem with paying MORE taxes. If you think wanting to use more a measley 30% of my paycheck to feed and clothe my family makes me a cheapskate, then you must be independently wealthy. Enjoy!
Did you miss what I started this off with? It is not a measly 5-10 cents…it is a sizeable 41.8 cents here in delaware (closer to 80-90 cents in NY and CA).
Dana was talking about the marginal tax increase that would have been sufficient to fund the bridge repairs, but was vetoed by the Republican governor.
Should it then be lowered, after the bridge is repaired?
Sure, provided that there isn’t another bridge at risk that needs to be repaired.
Or a road or highway that needs major repair or replacement.
Or sewer system that needs maintenance or upgrade.
You see where this is going. It is not just one bridge or piece of infrastructure that is at risk. There are giant pieces of just the Interstate system that are coming to the end of its planned life. It is not as though the working life of this built environment can’t be extended, you simply cannot do it for free. Or even very cheaply anymore.
“Sure, provided that there isn’t another bridge at risk that needs to be repaired.
Or a road or highway that needs major repair or replacement.
Or sewer system that needs maintenance or upgrade.”
Or a permanent public employees union aristocracy to feed…
Or an expansion of entitlements to grow…
It’s like the statewide property tax that DelTech suggested to upgrade their infrastructure. What happens once the infrastructure is upgraded? Does the property tax cease? No. DelTech just gets fatter.
Our state government has grown now to where we spend $2 billion on paychecks and benefits and far les than that on building things. The priority in our state has been decided, and that priority is the people who work for the state, not the people who live in it. When DelDOT takes $350,000,000 out of a fund that’s supposed to build things and instead it goes to salaries and benefits for people sitting behind desks, we have chosen.
Miles North — Don’t worry about that other anon. He/she uses the trust fund bit to distract from the fact that I’m usually right and he/she’s usually not. I’ve never had a trust fund, and he/she knows it.
“Or a permanent public employees union aristocracy to feed…”
Yea, right, like all those public employees who make so little at their full time public jobs that they qualify for public assistance. They are endangering tax cuts for rich elites residing in Greenville and in those beach mansions in Sussex.
“Dana was talking about the marginal tax increase that would have been sufficient to fund the bridge repairs, but was vetoed by the Republican governor.”
I am not going to crucify or defend the specific action of that governor, because I don’t know the details.
But here is a thought (which will absolutely blow your liberal minds). Did you ever think money already collected could be reapportioned and put in the more critical categories rather than taxing us YET AGAIN!
The role of government is to provide security (military), infrastructure, Public safety (police and health inspections), and justice. Yes, there are also supposed to be some administrative costs covering creation and execution of laws and policies. But it is this latter category which is overabused.
Some are critical, but how many of them do not fall into the above categories? How many of them are special interest social programs that fall out of the purview of government? Could not money be found by elminating many of these, or at the very least reorganize them to eliminate overhead (Oh terrible Repub, it would mean people would lose their jobs! Jobs that should have never existed to begin with).
This big mess was not what the founding fathers wanted. They hoped that the Federal government (and in turn the state governments) would adopt a very minimalist attitude.
For you computer geeks, government should be a “light client” and not Windows.
Look at the little state of Delaware. It only contains 1,932 sq. miles of land and employs 14,425 people. So that means there are roughly 7 and half employees for every square mile of land in the state. Excessive.
In 2006, when MBNA was the largest Delaware employer, they only employed 10,500 people and that was listed for the Greater Philadelphia area, so probably not all of them were in Delaware. If a “light government” is the largest employer in the state…that is a problem.
Trim the fat, move the excess to infrastructure and leave the taxes alone!
And stop abusing this tragedy as a way to suck up more money. Shameful.
Or a permanent public employees union aristocracy to feed…
Or an expansion of entitlements to grow…
And this is where the Calvinball begins.
In which case, I should get on my high horse about the welfare and entitlement programs provided to wealthy farmers, banks, Walmart, energy companies all while their partisans try to bamboozle the rest of us into thinking that corporate welfare is free market economics. My tax money used to socialize the risk that these corporations are supposed to be taking on, does not get used to maintain the infrastructure that the government built.
But folks like you are delighted to subsidize big box marketers while the very roads and bridges you use are in disrepair. Much of i95 in Philly and Baltimore is elevated. Did you know that a big section of 95 actually collapsed in Philly? And plenty more sections are at risk.
But, that is ok I suppose — Walmart shareholders are doing just fine while the Highway Trust Fund goes broke. This nation’s infrastructure used to be a source of earned pride and used to be seen as an asset in the safe and quick moving of people and goods around the country. It is critical infrastructure now and it simply does not take care of itself, mo matter how many magic beans you throw at it.
“My tax money used to socialize the risk that these corporations are supposed to be taking on, does not get used to maintain the infrastructure that the government built.”
And see..I will meet you in the middle there. I agree. That is not the business of government as well. So lets quit bickering and ditch all the welfare, corporate and non-critical social, and fix our roads.
Can we get off this trust fund business, folks? It adds nothing to any of these discussions.
I agree, and I won’t take part in it with respect to FSP. His finances are none of our business, at least not until he runs for office. I don’t know the Burrises or their business – really, I don’t – so the rest of what I have to say is about pro-business conservatives generically.
Dana, this should resonate with you: I have a hard time accepting lectures on self-reliance and the free market from people who know they will not be allowed to fail.
There was one Republican figure who advertised his business acumen and his ability to overcome adversity. Except that during his period of “adversity,” he managed to send several kids to private school.
This is not the kind of “adversity” that normal people encounter. It is the kind of adversity that is soothed by angel investors, donated services, and an endless list of family perks. Real failure is when your business goes under, you have to downsize your housing and liquidate all your assets. I’ve done that. And then, you learn to appreciate a safety net strong enough to catch you.
BTW, the rich rarely give trust funds to their children – they give them to their grandchildren.
“In which case, I should get on my high horse about the welfare and entitlement programs provided to wealthy farmers, banks, Walmart, energy companies all while their partisans try to bamboozle the rest of us into thinking that corporate welfare is free market economics.”
You’re goddamned right you should. It’s one of the worst aspects of our federal government. The elimination of corporate welfare could easily solve all of our infrastructure problems.
“Real failure is when your business goes under, you have to downsize your housing and liquidate all your assets. I’ve done that.”
Me, too. It sucks. Thank God it happened before I had a family.
“Yea, right, like all those public employees who make so little at their full time public jobs that they qualify for public assistance. They are endangering tax cuts for rich elites residing in Greenville and in those beach mansions in Sussex.”
Dana — That’s cheap. You know how I feel about that. But it doesn’t change the fact that our state has chosen to take $350,000,000 out of the infrastructure fund to pay people instead of build things, and most of the people they are paying are not at the bottom. And you know it.
If you go to this PDF of the state budget, and go to line 46 on page 45, you will see the total budgeted amount for the Department of Transportation, $350,908,600, is in the “TFO” column, which on line 14 of page 62, is identified as “Trust Fund Operations.”
Only the Transportation Trust Fund is not supposed to go to DelDOT’s operations — it’s supposed to go to BUILDING ROADS.
So the state is taking $350,000,000+ annually out of the road fund to pay people to work at DelDOT.
It’s kind of ironic, if you think about it. We can’t afford to build roads because we’re taking money out to fund DelDOT.
Thanks for that info. I’ll look at this in better detail later. (But I did learn from some of the annotations to the DelDOT budget that EZPass can’t be used to track car speed! Woo Hoo!!) And I’m an engineer, so I like to see where data comes from.
I suppose I need to educate myself on how this is done here, but in other states (Maryland is the one I know best), the Transportation Trust Fund is something of an accounting mechanism to get these funds exempt from the usual “use it or lose it” state and federal rules. So that almost all of the funds used to fund MD transportation projects get put into the trust fund — bond receipts, transportation taxes, operating revenues, federal funds, etc go into the Fund and that Fund finances MDOT operations. It looks to me that is the case here and I am not getting what is so wrong with that, considering that road construction and long-term maintenance ops do not have fiscal year life cycles.
I guess the next step is to find the statute that says: Only the Transportation Trust Fund is not supposed to go to DelDOT’s operations — it’s supposed to go to BUILDING ROADS.
I hate taxes! I just saw this shirt on ebay that says, “Read My Blog, No New Taxes.” It’s definitely fitting. I hate taxes with a passion.-And I’m definitely gonna be the first buyer.
Disgusting! Liberals have no qualms about using dead bodies to increase their tax and power base. Have you no shame at all?
You can raise the taxes all you want but it won’t work. That money would never have ended up in the highway fund and you know it. It gets diverted to pet projects on both sides of the aisle.
I agree that infrastructure IS one of the FEW things the government should be managing. I am not a fan of the privatization ideas. It is nice that you can blame that too on Bush, but lets take a look at the two most local Govs. pushing it: Rendell(D) and Corzine(D). They must be secretly damn corporate loving Republicans.
Don’t we already tax gas enough? In Delaware alone, between just state and federal, you are looking at 41.4 cents a gallon. (Source: http://www.delawaregasprices.com/tax_info.aspx)
And for all I know NCC or Wilmington could be collecting additionally on that.
But sure…why not. Why stop at raising it 5 cents? Get us to where you want us to be…sending our entire paycheck to the government. Admit it….that it what you really long after….
Interesting to hear the concept of “shame” brought up by the likes of you.
Shame.
Imagine how better off we’d all be if Republicans could feel shame. Forget about the shameful act the invasion of Iraq, and just think about the shameful pork laden $286 Billion highway bill, the one that brought us the Bridge to Nowhere.
That shameful monstrosity was pushed through a Republican Congress and signed into law about the same time the I-35 bridge was determined to be a 50 on a scale of 120 for structural stability.
If Republicans could feel shame they might look at the fact that more people fell off the I-35 bridge than live in the within 100 miles of the Bridge to Nowhere.
Fifty people are going to be served by the Republican’s shameful $200 Million pet project—there were more than that number injured by the bridge collapse in Minneapolis.
Liberals have no qualms about using dead bodies to increase their tax and power base.
Because, you know, Republicans would never do such a thing.
The line-item for the Bridge to Nowhere was removed from that bill. But don’t let the facts get in your way.
Do you want to know what’s in the current crop of Appropriations bills? I mean, it’ll kill your argument, but are you interested?
Bridge collapses in Minnesota are not the fault of any political party or ideological group. The shame lies with those who would try to claim that it does.
Bridge collapses in Minnesota are not the fault of any political party or ideological group.
I this case it does Dave that is the whole point.
“No new taxes” is a slogan with real world implicatins as we’ve just seen. All of the Republican solgans which sound good on paper like “Global War on Terror”, “Deficits doesn’t matter” right down to something innocent sounding like “Mission Accomplished” can win votes but at a very high downstream cost.
The 2006 Minnesota Capital Budget allocated $71 million to bridge repair.
You can use your pointy sticks and catchphrases all day long to try and make your point, but it’s highly irresponsible to blame the deaths of people in Minnesota on a political party.
Not that responsible is on the list of adjectives one would use to describe DL.
For half a dozen years, the motto of state government and particularly that of Gov. Tim Pawlenty has been No New Taxes. It’s been popular with a lot of voters and it has mostly prevailed. So much so that Pawlenty vetoed a 5-cent gas tax increase – the first in 20 years – last spring and millions were lost that might have gone to road repair.
Highly irresponsible is a term that comes to mind when I read that.
And if you take every dollar from every citizen, imagine what you could do with that!
“You can use your pointy sticks and catchphrases all day long to try and make your point, but it’s highly irresponsible to blame the deaths of people in Minnesota on a political party.”
You need to watch that paranoia since nothing in my post at DE Watch says that the last 20 + years of this bridge’s problems was the exclusive responsibility of the Repubs.
And you might want to watch the hysteria too:
“And if you take every dollar from every citizen, imagine what you could do with that!”
*****
“Disgusting! Liberals have no qualms about using dead bodies to increase their tax and power base. Have you no shame at all?”
I can think of something far more disgusting: When cheapskate conservatives don’t mind the death of dozens of human beings from a bridge collapse all because they want to save themselves a measly 5-10 cents a week when they fill up their cars.
What do you conservatives think? Bridges fix themselves? That paying to repair them happens by magic? That’s what concerns me the most about you conservatives. You don’t live in the real world but in a fantasy world which says that the best way to pay for needful things is to underfund them.
It just like when one your heroes old Wolfowitz (sp?)said the invasion & occupation of Iraq would pay for itself through Iraqi’s oil revenue. How’s that bit of magical thinking going for you?
You tightwads are disgusting & the American people are finally catching on.
all because they want to save themselves a measly 5-10 cents a week when they fill up their cars.
No…conservatives don’t care about lower prices at the pump. They want low gas taxes so people can continue to buy the same amount of gas at war-inflated prices.
Note that the gas tax is a specific amount, not a percentage. So as the price of gas goes up, the percentage collected as tax goes down.
God forbid the gas tax should be raised – people might buy LESS GAS.
The governor veto’d a new spending bill 2 years in a row and part of that veto included money for maintentance to the roads Davey…
“all because they want to save themselves a measly 5-10 cents a week when they fill up their cars.’
Did you miss what I started this off with? It is not a measly 5-10 cents…it is a sizeable 41.8 cents here in delaware (closer to 80-90 cents in NY and CA). And if this were the only tax we pay…then so be it. But lets see, we have local property takes, state property taxes, state income taxes, federal income takes, city wage tax (in some places. See, I realize it doesn’t seem burdensome here in DE because you have it easy here.
In NJ I was paying 6% on every purchase, property taxes that were triple of what I am paying here (Nearly $7,000 dollars a year on what was a $180,000 house, which in Jersey is not big).
When all is said and done at the end of the year many of us pay out between 60 and 70% of income in one tax form or another. So forgive those of us that have a problem with paying MORE taxes. If you think wanting to use more a measley 30% of my paycheck to feed and clothe my family makes me a cheapskate, then you must be independently wealthy. Enjoy!
Did you miss what I started this off with? It is not a measly 5-10 cents…it is a sizeable 41.8 cents here in delaware (closer to 80-90 cents in NY and CA).
Dana was talking about the marginal tax increase that would have been sufficient to fund the bridge repairs, but was vetoed by the Republican governor.
In MN the tax is 20 cents.
Dana – You’re not the one blaming deaths in Minnesota on Republicans. Jason is.
Does anyone here agree there should be a limit to taxation?
Dave –
Do you agree that the empty headed GOP’s slogans I name above have had very bad downstream consequences?
Okay then.
Does anyone here agree there should be a limit to taxation?
Yes. And sometimes the limit needs to be raised. Like when you have a bridge about to fall down.
Should it then be lowered, after the bridge is repaired?
Trust fund wants to turn us into another Columbia. No class mobility, with low taxes with an infrastructure to match.
Should it then be lowered, after the bridge is repaired?
If that is your approach to maintaining infrastructure, then you will have a bridge collapse every month.
[note: I’m not your “trust fund” anon, so I’m trying out a new handle. You’re on your own with that other anon.]
Should it then be lowered, after the bridge is repaired?
Sure, provided that there isn’t another bridge at risk that needs to be repaired.
Or a road or highway that needs major repair or replacement.
Or sewer system that needs maintenance or upgrade.
You see where this is going. It is not just one bridge or piece of infrastructure that is at risk. There are giant pieces of just the Interstate system that are coming to the end of its planned life. It is not as though the working life of this built environment can’t be extended, you simply cannot do it for free. Or even very cheaply anymore.
“Sure, provided that there isn’t another bridge at risk that needs to be repaired.
Or a road or highway that needs major repair or replacement.
Or sewer system that needs maintenance or upgrade.”
Or a permanent public employees union aristocracy to feed…
Or an expansion of entitlements to grow…
It’s like the statewide property tax that DelTech suggested to upgrade their infrastructure. What happens once the infrastructure is upgraded? Does the property tax cease? No. DelTech just gets fatter.
Our state government has grown now to where we spend $2 billion on paychecks and benefits and far les than that on building things. The priority in our state has been decided, and that priority is the people who work for the state, not the people who live in it. When DelDOT takes $350,000,000 out of a fund that’s supposed to build things and instead it goes to salaries and benefits for people sitting behind desks, we have chosen.
Miles North — Don’t worry about that other anon. He/she uses the trust fund bit to distract from the fact that I’m usually right and he/she’s usually not. I’ve never had a trust fund, and he/she knows it.
“Or a permanent public employees union aristocracy to feed…”
Yea, right, like all those public employees who make so little at their full time public jobs that they qualify for public assistance. They are endangering tax cuts for rich elites residing in Greenville and in those beach mansions in Sussex.
Can we get off this trust fund business, folks? It adds nothing to any of these discussions.
“Dana was talking about the marginal tax increase that would have been sufficient to fund the bridge repairs, but was vetoed by the Republican governor.”
I am not going to crucify or defend the specific action of that governor, because I don’t know the details.
But here is a thought (which will absolutely blow your liberal minds). Did you ever think money already collected could be reapportioned and put in the more critical categories rather than taxing us YET AGAIN!
The role of government is to provide security (military), infrastructure, Public safety (police and health inspections), and justice. Yes, there are also supposed to be some administrative costs covering creation and execution of laws and policies. But it is this latter category which is overabused.
Just look at how many state agencies and departments there are here in Delaware alone. http://delaware.gov/egov/portal.nsf/portal/agencylist_dept
Some are critical, but how many of them do not fall into the above categories? How many of them are special interest social programs that fall out of the purview of government? Could not money be found by elminating many of these, or at the very least reorganize them to eliminate overhead (Oh terrible Repub, it would mean people would lose their jobs! Jobs that should have never existed to begin with).
This big mess was not what the founding fathers wanted. They hoped that the Federal government (and in turn the state governments) would adopt a very minimalist attitude.
For you computer geeks, government should be a “light client” and not Windows.
Look at the little state of Delaware. It only contains 1,932 sq. miles of land and employs 14,425 people. So that means there are roughly 7 and half employees for every square mile of land in the state. Excessive.
In 2006, when MBNA was the largest Delaware employer, they only employed 10,500 people and that was listed for the Greater Philadelphia area, so probably not all of them were in Delaware. If a “light government” is the largest employer in the state…that is a problem.
Trim the fat, move the excess to infrastructure and leave the taxes alone!
And stop abusing this tragedy as a way to suck up more money. Shameful.
Did you ever think money already collected could be reapportioned
The MN gas tax is 20 cents, among the lowest in the nation, in a state where roads freeze, thaw and refreeze constantly.
Which “Peter” should be robbed to pay for the “Paul” projects?
“Which “Peter” should be robbed to pay for the “Paul” projects?”
The “Peter’s” that government shouldn’t be responsible for. Reread above.
Or a permanent public employees union aristocracy to feed…
Or an expansion of entitlements to grow…
And this is where the Calvinball begins.
In which case, I should get on my high horse about the welfare and entitlement programs provided to wealthy farmers, banks, Walmart, energy companies all while their partisans try to bamboozle the rest of us into thinking that corporate welfare is free market economics. My tax money used to socialize the risk that these corporations are supposed to be taking on, does not get used to maintain the infrastructure that the government built.
But folks like you are delighted to subsidize big box marketers while the very roads and bridges you use are in disrepair. Much of i95 in Philly and Baltimore is elevated. Did you know that a big section of 95 actually collapsed in Philly? And plenty more sections are at risk.
But, that is ok I suppose — Walmart shareholders are doing just fine while the Highway Trust Fund goes broke. This nation’s infrastructure used to be a source of earned pride and used to be seen as an asset in the safe and quick moving of people and goods around the country. It is critical infrastructure now and it simply does not take care of itself, mo matter how many magic beans you throw at it.
“My tax money used to socialize the risk that these corporations are supposed to be taking on, does not get used to maintain the infrastructure that the government built.”
And see..I will meet you in the middle there. I agree. That is not the business of government as well. So lets quit bickering and ditch all the welfare, corporate and non-critical social, and fix our roads.
Good thread.
Good points all around.
Can we get off this trust fund business, folks? It adds nothing to any of these discussions.
I agree, and I won’t take part in it with respect to FSP. His finances are none of our business, at least not until he runs for office. I don’t know the Burrises or their business – really, I don’t – so the rest of what I have to say is about pro-business conservatives generically.
Dana, this should resonate with you: I have a hard time accepting lectures on self-reliance and the free market from people who know they will not be allowed to fail.
There was one Republican figure who advertised his business acumen and his ability to overcome adversity. Except that during his period of “adversity,” he managed to send several kids to private school.
This is not the kind of “adversity” that normal people encounter. It is the kind of adversity that is soothed by angel investors, donated services, and an endless list of family perks. Real failure is when your business goes under, you have to downsize your housing and liquidate all your assets. I’ve done that. And then, you learn to appreciate a safety net strong enough to catch you.
BTW, the rich rarely give trust funds to their children – they give them to their grandchildren.
“In which case, I should get on my high horse about the welfare and entitlement programs provided to wealthy farmers, banks, Walmart, energy companies all while their partisans try to bamboozle the rest of us into thinking that corporate welfare is free market economics.”
You’re goddamned right you should. It’s one of the worst aspects of our federal government. The elimination of corporate welfare could easily solve all of our infrastructure problems.
“Real failure is when your business goes under, you have to downsize your housing and liquidate all your assets. I’ve done that.”
Me, too. It sucks. Thank God it happened before I had a family.
“Yea, right, like all those public employees who make so little at their full time public jobs that they qualify for public assistance. They are endangering tax cuts for rich elites residing in Greenville and in those beach mansions in Sussex.”
Dana — That’s cheap. You know how I feel about that. But it doesn’t change the fact that our state has chosen to take $350,000,000 out of the infrastructure fund to pay people instead of build things, and most of the people they are paying are not at the bottom. And you know it.
…our state has chosen to take $350,000,000 out of the infrastructure fund
Can you source this number from a credible (i.e. detailed) authority?
I’m not credible, OM?
If you go to this PDF of the state budget, and go to line 46 on page 45, you will see the total budgeted amount for the Department of Transportation, $350,908,600, is in the “TFO” column, which on line 14 of page 62, is identified as “Trust Fund Operations.”
Only the Transportation Trust Fund is not supposed to go to DelDOT’s operations — it’s supposed to go to BUILDING ROADS.
So the state is taking $350,000,000+ annually out of the road fund to pay people to work at DelDOT.
It’s kind of ironic, if you think about it. We can’t afford to build roads because we’re taking money out to fund DelDOT.
Thanks for that info. I’ll look at this in better detail later. (But I did learn from some of the annotations to the DelDOT budget that EZPass can’t be used to track car speed! Woo Hoo!!) And I’m an engineer, so I like to see where data comes from.
I suppose I need to educate myself on how this is done here, but in other states (Maryland is the one I know best), the Transportation Trust Fund is something of an accounting mechanism to get these funds exempt from the usual “use it or lose it” state and federal rules. So that almost all of the funds used to fund MD transportation projects get put into the trust fund — bond receipts, transportation taxes, operating revenues, federal funds, etc go into the Fund and that Fund finances MDOT operations. It looks to me that is the case here and I am not getting what is so wrong with that, considering that road construction and long-term maintenance ops do not have fiscal year life cycles.
I guess the next step is to find the statute that says: Only the Transportation Trust Fund is not supposed to go to DelDOT’s operations — it’s supposed to go to BUILDING ROADS.
I mean, there should be such a statute, right?
I hate taxes! I just saw this shirt on ebay that says, “Read My Blog, No New Taxes.” It’s definitely fitting. I hate taxes with a passion.-And I’m definitely gonna be the first buyer.
Did I mention that I hate taxes?