The Highway Bill Monstrosity

Gridlock on the roads costs motorists more than $100 billion a year in delays and wasted gas. Additional highway lanes are needed, with market-based pricing, including higher tolls during peak travel times.

Meanwhile, people use public transit sparingly. You may have noticed how often city buses pass by nearly empty. Overall, public transit accounts for a mere 2 percent of all inner-city trips – closer to 1 percent outside New York City. 

You’d think the federal government, in its wisdom, would arrange for more highway lanes and less public transit.

Sorry about that. Liberals hate cars (except for themselves), and they love unionized public transit. The highway bill now before Congress therefore provides too little money for roads, no money for market-based pricing, and gobs of the stuff for union-organized public transit in politically-powerful cities.

How about enabling the states to decide what’s best for them? Naah, the feds want to preserve the power for themselves.

Would you think that liberals have no interest in anything but the power? Why of course not. Great souls that they are, they keep the genuine interests of others forefront in their minds.