BCT Editorial – 5/21/10

This page was last updated on May 21, 2010.

Sorry mess; Editorial; Beaver County Times; May 21, 2010.

Editorials like this go back at least five years. You can read more about this in my critique of “Falling apart.”

The editorial says, “we as a nation and state have failed miserably when it comes to maintaining and investing in the infrastructure that we inherited.” Perhaps it’s because we’re spending so much of our tax dollars on income/wealth redistribution programs like public schools, government-run bus systems, PACE, Medicaid, Medicare, Socialist Security, welfare, et cetera we don’t have the money for true government responsibilities. Remember, when we originally built much of our infrastructure, we didn’t have most of these programs, and thus they weren’t consuming our tax dollars. In 1900, our total (local, state, & federal) tax burden was 5.9% of income, in 1930 it was 11.7%, in 1940 it was 17.9%, and in 2000 the tax burden reached its peak of 33%. Because the economy is down, the tax burden as of April 9, 2010, was 27%.

The dam and lock system serves two purposes, facilitate river transportation and flood control for river towns. Logically, the vast majority of funding for this system should come from user fees and/or taxes paid by commercial and recreational users of the river as well as river towns protected by the system. What happens now is maintenance funds come about 50% from the Army Corps of Engineers (that is, taxpayers via a budget approved by Congress) and 50% from the Inland Waterways Trust Fund (about $100 million/year funded by a 20-cents-per-gallon tax on diesel fuel used by the barge industry).

Finally, why didn’t the Times mention the $787 billion so-called “stimulus” bill as a potential source of funds? After all, only about 1/3 of it has been committed. Isn’t this the kind of project we were told the bill was to address? Does anyone want to bet the rest of the $787 billion will be doled out in the months leading up to this year’s mid-term election?