No More Libertarian Street Cred
Posted by
tgirsch
SayUncle sheds the last of his with this screed:
Bredesen is exploring toll roads to pay for TDOT. This is despite TN’s surplus. Let me be the first to say fuck that. Toll roads are inconvenient, delay traffic, require me to keep change/method of payment in my car, and are generally a pain in the ass. Here’s an idea: use the surplus or cut spending.
Dude, toll roads are a use tax, otherwise known as the only kind of tax libertarians don’t despise. Opposition to a use tax — especially because such a tax would be inconvenient — is about as un-libertarian as one can get. I mean, to think, someone who has sometimes self-identified as libertarian would suggest that pay-for-use is bad, and that a less representative tax is better, simply because of inconvenience? This makes no sense at all to me.
For the record, I oppose toll roads, for some of the same reasons Uncle does. But since I don’t self-identify as libertarian, and don’t reflexively oppose every tax proposal ever irrespective of merit, as he does, I’m allowed to. 
As a side note, I always love how the anti-tax folks throw out “cut spending” as an easy solution, as if it were really as simple as that. Tell you what, have a look at the 2007-2008 budget, and tell me where you’re going to cut spending, and how you’re going to do it in a way that can (a) win approval, and (b) not piss off the electorate at large. Last I heard, we live in a representative democracy, not a monarchy. You don’t get to just cut entire programs by fiat. You have to gain majority approval in the legislature, get the agreement of the executive branch, and, if you want to keep your job, not violate the will of the people in the process.
So before you go on and on with the “cut spending” crap, stop and think for more than two seconds and tell us what spending you’re going to cut, and why the public will be better off (or at least not worse off) after the cut. Until then, saying “we should cut spending” is rather like saying “we should be doing better in Iraq” without giving any inkling as to how.
As I said in comments:
That aside, cutting spending is a good solution but no one wants to give up their vote buying. But so is the other: use the surplus!
Comment 3/30/2007
I oppose them for being a pain in the ass.
Wouldn’t that pretty much rule out all use taxes?
And is the surplus enough to cover it?
Comment 3/30/2007
“And is the surplus enough to cover it?”
Did anybody look?
Comment 3/30/2007
That surplus, if it remains true for the 2006-2007 tax year, would cover about 25% of the TDOT budget.
Comment 3/30/2007
The other issue with “spending cuts” is that what should be proposed isn’t “spending cuts” but no new “spending increases”.
Spend what we need to fund these programs. But before you reach in to my wallet again for more money, I want to know- a.)why we need to spend MORE than we are currently and b.)how much of that can be covered by the surplus.
Comment 3/30/2007