Corruption Week - one very costly example

Can you imagine going to a store – or a plumber – perhaps a gardener or just the local barber shop – and being told that the product or service you desire will cost you $XX but you will have to pay 1.64XX for your purchase.  In other words, you will pay 64% more for your purchase.  What happens to the extra 64%?  Well it goes to the service/product provider; basically into their pocket.  Think of it like organized crime - taking a big piece for the godfather and the captains all the way down to the wiseguys.

Look below, and you will see how much the listed states plus the feds add to each gallon of gasoline purchased.  In the next column we show you how those dollars are spent on each mile of road.  Hawaii actually uses the money they collect to build and repair roads.  They are not typical.  Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin don’t even come close.  All the states averaged out?  They collect 28.2 cents per gallon and spend on each mile of road – 17.2 cents; about 60 cents of each dollar collected.

The government payrolls grow; the average paycheck per government employee far exceeds that of the private sector worker; pensions and benefits for government employees are way out of line with the private sector; and the roads crumble; are not adequate for increasing traffic levels and traffic accidents and backups are epidemic.  In other words, the better and bigger roads necessary to support the private sector so that their workers can pay taxes to support all the government costs are put in the back seat – while the government employee sits upfront.

It just doesn’t work, anymore.

State	Taxes on gas (cents)	Dollars spent per lane-mile
California	52.9	43.5
New York	49.9	35.1
Connecticut	49.3	42.5
Hawaii	48.1	48.3
Pennsylvania	41.8	29.3
Michigan	41.4	11.7
Indiana	40.8	13.3
Illinois	39.1	20.5
Wisconsin	32.9	13.9
Ohio	28	18.9
Iowa	22	8.4
NATIONAL AVERAGE	28.2	17.2

Sources: Tax data is for 2014 from the American Petroleum Institute. Spending data is for 2012 from the Federal Highway Administration.

Source:  http://www.freep.com/article/20140523/NEWS06/305230042/roads-taxes-fuel-michigan