Besides the fact that I don’t look good on TV
Here’s an idea that floated to my head some months ago with regards to state’s rights.
You know where you find a lot of the pork spending in our nation? In the transportation budget. This is the bullshit pork spending that leads to bridges to islands with 50 people in them in Alaska and bridges named after Robert Byrd. This is also used by the federal government to dictate highway regulations back to the states.
You see, the federal government doesn’t have the power to set such rules. They cannot mandate our speed limits. They cannot pass a law that says we must wear seat belts. They cannot set the legal blood alcohol content level for drivers. Hell it’s the very reason that every state in the union sets the drinking age at 21 years of age.
What they can do is tax us. I’m talking here about the federal gas tax: 18.4 cents per gallon. Failure to comply with the federal guidelines means you jeopardize getting that money back. Play nice and you get your money, right?
Wrong.
Michigan, along with plenty of other states are donor states. Michigan gets back 92 cents on the dollar for every $1.00 we pump into the system. Washington DC gets back around $5.00 for every $1.00 they put into the system. I wonder why that area gets special treatment.
If I had my way the solution to this would be rather simple: Michigan tax payers should just quit paying into the system. Just increase the state gas tax to take in the same amount of money and stop sending it to DC. What are they going to do? Send the Army in after us?
Now, I understand perfectly well that there’s a reason that some states get more in tax dollars than others. For instance it makes sense to give Illinois an amount out of proportion with the amount that they donate. They need that money to keep up the interstates around Chicago because a metric crapload of vehicles that don’t ever bother buying gas in Illinois pass through there. Any state with a disproportionate amount of through-way traffic needs extra funding.
That would be understandable.
My beef is that Michigan’s roads suck and we’re getting shafted by the federal gas tax program. Less than fifty people in Alaska are getting a new bridge while I drive to work on roads so full of potholes that I’m glad I drive an SUV so I don’t bottom out on them.
I like to drive. A lot. If I want to get somewhere I prefer to do it by automobile. I’ve trucked my ass from Michigan to Maine to Montana to Missouri to New York City to Kentucky and God knows where else I’ve forgotten. Hands down Michigan’s roads are the worst. I’ve checked. When you see a sign in Michigan that indicates a “Dip” in the road you put both hands on the steering wheel and grit your teeth. When you see one in Illinois you simply remember not to take a drink of your coffee until after you hit it.
It isn’t that we get less money back that pisses me off.
It isn’t that a bunch of yahoos in Washington demand I put my seat belt on that pisses me off.
It isn’t that our roads suck that pisses me off.
It’s when you put them all together that things start to irritate me.
“What are they going to do? Send the Army in after us?”
Well, no; they’ll just have the IRS start seizing gas stations and putting gas station execs in prison. Mind you, I think the proper response to that would be to put IRS agents in state prison but we know that isn’t going to happen.
“You see, the federal government doesn’t have the power to set such rules. They cannot mandate our speed limits. They cannot pass a law that says we must wear seat belts. They cannot set the legal blood alcohol content level for drivers. Hell it’s the very reason that every state in the union sets the drinking age at 21 years of age.”
Well, that’s only if they pay any attention to the u.S. Constitution. And that hasn’t been much of an impediment for quite a while. They can make an argument that each and every one of those things “affects” interstate commerce and proceed to tell us what to do and still not “give back” any of the gas tax money. It isn’t so much passing such laws that gives them trouble as it is the complete inability to enforce such laws.