On Wednesday, November 17, 2004, at 05:35 AM, Wendy Wulff wrote:
The Motor Vehicle Excise Tax is not quite the same as a sales tax, although
the rate is the same.
Correct- that's how big corporations buy $100,000 tractor trailer rigs in states with no sales tax on trucks, then bring them to Minnesota to wear our highways out. Meanwhile their underpaid and overworked but honest truck driver pays a thousand dollars in sales tax on their new Saturn. And while our truck driver has to park at the back of the lot, right by the main entrance are the new SUVs of the company executives- we taxpayers paid for the huge tax credit they got for buying those SUVs. In fact, even at the lowest federal tax rate they got a bigger tax credit than they paid in state sales tax.
I am not familiar with the Act cited - a google search, and quick perusal of
the text looked as though it dealt with "buy American" issues with regard to
the purchase of buses and trains with federal money. If I missed something,
please let me know.
Once again a common citizen of Minneapolis has to educate a suburban Council Member who ought to know these things. You should be able to find the full text of STAA at thomas.gov- suffice to say STAA, amongst a lot of other dumb things, forced every state, county, city, etc.. to allow 40 ton trucks on any street or highway.
Most of MN is working on upgrading a network of major
roads (primarily county highways) to 10 ton standards. If Minneapolis is
building their local streets to 40 ton standards, they would be the only
ones doing so.
Wendy, trust me, there are 40 ton trucks legally running the streets of Lakeville. And most certainly there are even heavier trucks illegally operating in Lakeville. The 10 tons refers to the design standard to support a single axle of a truck, not the total weight of the entire truck. Wendy, you might wish to note that every truck I've seen actually moving has more than one axle, thusly it's total weight can be more than 10 tons.
We have a lot of major highways, never mind streets, whose roadbeds were laid down before the construction of the interstate system began nearly a half century ago. Back then the axle weight limit was 8 tons. The federal law establishing the Interstate System forced us to accept a 9 ton axle limit, and STAA forced 10 ton axles on our aging streets and highways. In the two decades since STAA took effect we still haven't seen much of the thousands of miles of county roads and city streets rebuilt to accomodate 10 ton axle loads. It would thusly be more cost effective to require another axle under 40 ton trucks bringing axle loads back under 7 tons and diverting more heavy freight to the railroads which can better handle them. As a Lakevile Council Member you might thusly want to look into upgrading the "Dan Patch" line that connects our two cities.
Thanks for the discussion-
And next time you come to Minneapolis looking for an argument, please come a little better prepared.
hanging on in Hawthorne,
Dyna Sluyter
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