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Cutting spending is a good idea, but I'm not sure how the public would react to shutting down road lanes and stopping road construction projects until the gas tax fully pays for the roads instead of only 65% of the cost.

You aren't paying the full cost of driving, so how can you say you prefer your car to a train?

For example, cities typically dictate to business owners how much parking they must provide at their own expense for their customers. They have to pass the costs on to their customers through store prices, which means the cost of parking is shifted from people who drive to people who don't drive.

Roads themselves are heavily subsidized. Even if gas tax funds "were fully devoted to highways, total user fee revenue accounted for only 65 percent of all funds set aside for highways in 2007."

And then there are the negative externalities of gasoline usage, up to $1,600 per person per year.

If you had to start paying the true cost of driving, could you still honestly say you prefer driving to taking the train?

If the revenue from congestion tolling a road is invested back into the road, it lowers the amount of money that must be collected from the gas tax in order to maintain the road. Therefore, congestion pricing transfers wealth from people who can afford the market rate for travel during peak periods to those who can only afford the off-peak rates.

And because the gas tax and other user fees only cover 65% of the cost of the roads, then congestion pricing also reduces the road's maintenance burden on people who cannot afford to drive at all.

and it makes Amtrack money hand over fist.

Amtrak shows a small operating profit on that route by ignoring some of their larger fixed costs > like depreciation. Overall they're a money pit

The fuel taxes already pay for highway construction and maintenance with some left over.

Absolutely false. Even if gas tax funds "were fully devoted to highways, total user fee revenue accounted for only 65 percent of all funds set aside for highways in 2007."

Yes, profit margin is public data. Here's one place to pick it up, with analysis: http://subsidyscope.com/transportation/amtrak/table/

Average of $40-65 dollars per ticket profit on Acela, depending on whether or not you factor in other non-operational costs, which aren't as easily available and broken down by line.

There are other lines that are profitable from an operating cost standpoint, but not very many.

And yes, I'm not saying the success of Acela means we need a nationwide rail network, just was pointing out to the poster that his example already existed and was profitable. That doesn't mean others would be. You can fly to or between airports by helicopter taxi in NY also for pretty darn cheap. That doesn't mean it would scale to other locations...

That'd be because you tax the hell out of it.

If we (Americans) were to internalize all the negative externalities into the price of gasoline, how much would it cost? Add $20 per ton of CO2, which comes to 19 cents per gallon, for global warming. Add in the cost of air pollution, up to $1600 per person annually. Because gas taxes and user fees only make up 65% of the cost of the roads, add the other 35% into the cost of gasoline. And so on.

With all the externalities added to the price of gasoline, I think we would see gas prices similar to Europe's, and we would find that their gas taxes are more fair than ours.

State and local gasoline taxes are more than enough to upkeep roads in most cases.

False. Even if gas tax funds "were fully devoted to highways, total user fee revenue accounted for only 65 percent of all funds set aside for highways in 2007."

I work at the Sunlight Foundation, where we're pretty familiar with the people and data systems powering USASpending.gov. I've seen a lot of comments here saying that the important thing is that the government is publishing something, and that it's understandable that their first pass might not be perfect.

But this isn't their first pass. The underlying data systems -- FAADS and FPDS -- have existed since the 90s, and have been riddled with errors throughout their existence. Instead of fixing the problems, OMB continues to slap new coats of paint on the same lousy data.

It's nice that we've got a new USASpending.gov, and I agree that it would be a mistake to put too much emphasis on a buggy visualization. But the underlying data is terrible, and so far no one is showing the will to fix it. Just look at USASpending's "data quality" tab -- it talks about the completeness of each row. Well, that's great, but it tells you nothing about the thousands upon thousands of missing rows, nor about the rows that massively under- or over-report their dollar amounts.

At Subsidyscope, the project on which I work, we've delved into these problems in more depth. Those who'd like to learn more about the shortcomings of the data systems powering USASpending can find a discussion of the relevant issues here.

I work at the Sunlight Foundation, where we're pretty familiar with the people and data systems powering USASpending.gov. I've seen a lot of comments here saying that the important thing is that the government is publishing something, and that it's understandable that their first pass might not be perfect.

But this isn't their first pass. The underlying data systems -- FAADS and FPDS -- have existed since the 90s, and have been riddled with errors throughout their existence. Instead of fixing the problems, OMB continues to slap new coats of paint on the same lousy data.

It's nice that we've got a new USASpending.gov, and I agree that it would be a mistake to put too much emphasis on a buggy visualization. But the underlying data is terrible, and so far no one is showing the will to fix it. Just look at USASpending's "data quality" tab -- it talks about the completeness of each row. Well, that's great, but it tells you nothing about the thousands upon thousands of missing rows, nor about the rows that massively under- or over-report their dollar amounts.

At Subsidyscope, the project on which I work, we've delved into these problems in more depth. Those who'd like to learn more about the shortcomings of the data systems powering USASpending can find a discussion of the relevant issues here.