Lifestyle Transportation, What a Concept
In a WebMemo published earlier this month, Ron Utt, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, writes that Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minnesota) who is “chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, introduced a 775-page bill -- the Surface Transportation Authorization Act (STAA) -- which would reauthorize the federal highway and transit programs that expired on September 30 for another six years.”
Utt continues by pointing out:
“If enacted into law, Oberstar's STAA would mark a dramatic, harmful change in federal transportation policy by:
- Shifting resources from cars to trolleys and buses,
- Requiring a huge tax increase to fund these new commitments,
- Centralizing transportation decisions in Washington,
- Necessitating a substantial increase in the number of state, local, and federal government employees, and
- Discouraging the private sector from investing in surface transportation projects.”
“Higher Taxes for Social Engineering” (emphasis in the original).“As written, many provisions of STAA have two primary purposes:
- Deterring the use of automobiles; and
- Forcing residential and commercial development into higher density urban communities where public transit, walking, and bicycling would be the main form of transportation.
“To do this, Oberstar's bill would encourage and require states and metropolitan planning organizations to use new land use regulations that would lead to much higher densities than Americans now prefer.
“To fund these new commitments and lifestyle changes, STAA would require an additional $150-$200 billion in taxes over the next six years. Such an increase would be equivalent to a 112 percent increase in the federal fuel tax and an unspecified increase in other federal taxes to fund the added $50 billion higher-speed rail scheme STAA would also create.”
Utt concludes the WebMemo saying:
“As STAA now stands, there is no reasonable way to improve it, so rather than spend the next many months negotiating the terms of surrender, fiscal conservatives might better devote their energy to ending the federal highway program and turning it -- and the right to collect the federal fuel tax revenues -- back to the states.”
Sounds like a good idea to me.