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258 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 31 Jan \ on: How EVs bankrupted Highway Trust Fund. How would an economist fix it? econ
I also doubt this can really be attributed to EV's. Without doing any research, I would wager that improved mileage in gas engines has had a bigger impact on reducing gas taxes than EV adoption has.
My answer is similar to @Rothbardian_fanatic's: ideally the roads would be privatized and it would be up to the owners to figure out how to raise revenue. That might be through tolls or memberships or billboards or something none of us have thought of.
In principle, though, roads are an excludable good, so there's no particular reason normal market processes wouldn't apply to them.
Really, "Who should pay?" is not the right question. The entrepreneur's question is how to capture enough of the value created by the road to earn a profit from owning it.
My guess is that if state subsidies were removed, then much more traffic and freight would travel on rail over long distances. You can probably correct me, if my understanding is off base, but I believe rail is much cheaper to build and maintain, as well as being the more fuel efficient transport system.
Yes, it is always the job of the entrepreneurs to find ways to make the profit from an enterprise.
My suspicion is that the entrepreneurs would find a way that we have not a clue about to make the money. Necessity is the mother of invention, isn’t it?
I have to agree that the subsidies for the Eisenhower Military Roads enabled long haul trucking by taking the rail business. But the way the state has been running the railroads has degraded them to the point where safety is a real issue. Perhaps the looting got to be too much for the railroads. Mayor Pete did a real horseisht job on transportation and applying the bogus regulations. Rail is much more efficient when moving large cargos over long distances, but lately, the states are letting the thieves do their thing with no consequences, causing the looting of trains near their destinations.
As to the loss of taxes due to EVs, I have to agree with you on the increasing efficiency of the engines causing the decrease in the purchase of fuels. The state brought this on on themselves due to lack of foresight into the regulations to increase the CAFE. Idiots expected everyone to keep buying the same amount of fuel. I guess this is the bureaucracy and their thinking at work in a great example of the difference between them and entrepreneurs.
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