Exiled wrote:Perhaps we won't be able to sustain all our wars across the globe any more? Too bad, I was just starting to like our exploding military budgets and all the "bad guys" we are killing.
It would be great if the US government decided to prioritize less big government spending on military and put that into making a country worth defending (instead of the ____ country we have where you're afraid to drive over or under an old bridge).
Our current priorities are like installing a $10,000 security system on a decrepit shack.
While I'm not defending the current amounts of military spending, I do think we need to ask how the current infrastructure money is being used. There is a lot of money being spent at the federal, state and local levels, and I suspect there may be some improvements made to how it is allocated. Decades ago, Economist Clifford Winston shared some ideas to make infrastructure spending more efficient and equitable, but unsurprisingly, none of his ideas have been implemented.
For starters, the Brookings economist would replace as funding sources the federal and state gasoline tax and weight-based landing fees at airports with a cost-based fee system for passenger and freight transportation. The new system would, for example, charge cars and trucks for their contribution to congestion on the roads and bridges; charge planes of all sizes for their contribution to congestion on runways; and would, as noted, charge trucks for the actual damage these vehicles do to the road pavements. Because underpricing in these areas is the current norm, this system should raise more funds, while properly shifting the costs to users rather than taxpayers.
cinepro wrote:While I'm not defending the current amounts of military spending, I do think we need to ask how the current infrastructure money is being used. There is a lot of money being spent at the federal, state and local levels, and I suspect there may be some improvements made to how it is allocated. Decades ago, Economist Clifford Winston shared some ideas to make infrastructure spending more efficient and equitable, but unsurprisingly, none of his ideas have been implemented.
For starters, the Brookings economist would replace as funding sources the federal and state gasoline tax and weight-based landing fees at airports with a cost-based fee system for passenger and freight transportation. The new system would, for example, charge cars and trucks for their contribution to congestion on the roads and bridges; charge planes of all sizes for their contribution to congestion on runways; and would, as noted, charge trucks for the actual damage these vehicles do to the road pavements. Because underpricing in these areas is the current norm, this system should raise more funds, while properly shifting the costs to users rather than taxpayers.
I like the idea of looking for ways to make government spending more efficient. While we are at it, let's audit the Pentagon and see where the trillions went. Let's audit the Fed. Let's do a tracing on all government expenditures and see where the swamp people truly are.
"Religion is about providing human community in the guise of solving problems that don’t exist or failing to solve problems that do and seeking to reconcile these contradictions and conceal the failures in bogus explanations otherwise known as theology." - Kishkumen