--- In [email protected], "Richard J. Williams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > rflex wrote: > > "No New Taxes" has been the rallying cry for decades > > now, but nobody ever said how we were supposed to pay > > for the things we all take for granted. > > > This is silly - the bridge fell down becasue of structural > failure. Fuel efficiency has increased in the last decade > so the taxes in the state were down, and they didn't have > enough money for repairs. The only people that take this > for granted are people like you that pay no U.S. taxes.
1. State and federal fuel taxes are levied per gallon purchased and gasoline consumption has risen steadily in both the U.S. and Minnesota over the past decade (1-2% per year avg) -- see Energy Info. Administration data. Fuel efficiency is not revelant, it's total gallons purchased. 2. As a result of increased gasoline consumption in U.S. and Minnesota, federal and state revenues from fuel taxes have also been increasingly steadily over the past decade, not declining as willy says - this is easy to look up. 3. About half of MN transportation repair costs seem to come from federal and state fuel taxes - other kinds of tax revenues are also important sources. 4. I don't know if MN total tax revenues are down or not in recent years, but if they are it's due to the tax cuts introduced by their repub. gov., not due to fuel tax revenues which are in fact increasing. 5. The MN gov. has consistently vetoed increases specifically in the transportation repair budget since coming into office. This has nothing to do with fuel taxes, it's just his philosophy. you think the bridge collapsed due to structural failure willy? wow that's brillant. structural problems in the bridge were noted years ago by inspectors, the issue is why there hasn't been any structural repairs on the bridge since and the influence of budget cuts on that.
