State and federal fuel taxes do not come anywhere close to covering the cost of road maintenance. I don't think most people realize how extremely overbuilt our road network is in the U.S. The fuel taxes only cover about 1/3 of the cost in Minnesota.
The federal highway trust fund is bankrupt. We need to raise the gas tax and do a whole lot more to get us back in the black. Long-term we will have to look for other solutions such as a tax on Vehicle Miles Traveled.
Wrong. The federal highway trust fund is bankrupt because the federal gas tax hasn't kept pace with the cost. Here in Minnesota, only about 1/3 of the cost of roads is covered by state and federal gas taxes and other driving-related fees. The rest comes from property taxes and various other sources.
Actually, we don't pay for the road through gas taxes. Gas taxes have never come anywhere close to paying the cost of maintaining our road system. And now the value has greatly eroded over the decade due to the tax not keeping up with inflation. Here in Minnesota, state and federal gas taxes only pay for about 1/3 of the road cost.
Places like Portland, OR are experimenting with a tax on Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT). I'm not sure whether they're adjusting the tax for vehicle weight, type of fuel, etc. But we certainly have the technology to do it. It seems like a better long-term solution than fuel taxes.
hat I already pay taxes to maintain the roads. I pay a federal tax on gasoline, which is supposed to be used to maintain the interstate highway system.
Except the federal gas tax has lost buying power over the decades as the tax has not kept pace with the cost of maintaining highways. The federal highway trust fund is bankrupt. I'd have more sympathy for your position if you were out advocating that the federal gas tax be raised to cover the full cost of driving (and it's not just road maintenance).
Now all states have laws that say the the electors must vote based on the outcome of the election. The whole original point of EC is irrelevant now and so what we have is basically just a broken popular vote where citizens of different states count differently.
Only if you subscribe to a false idea of what the electoral college is for. The electoral college exists because there was a debate about the voice of small states vs. large states. The electoral college is one compromise reached to address that debate.
It's a complete fallacy that the electoral college exists to make sure the people don't vote for the "wrong" person.
No reasonable human being could possibly object to it, unless you share our forefathers' opinions that the country needs to be protected from the voters.
You misunderstand the purpose of the electoral college. It was not designed to protect the country from voters. It was a compromise between big states and small states. If Iowa knows what's good for them, they'll stick with the electoral college.
The electoral college was put in place so that there would be a check on the power of the uneducated masses
Wrong, that's pop history. The electoral college was put in place as a compromise between big-population states and small-population states. The electoral college gives smaller states a slightly higher influence than they would have under a straight popular vote.
No, the problem really is that unless the density of people is fairly high the required amount of funding PER POTENTIAL PASSENGER is far too high. Ridership is too low, the system cannot realistically be funded well enough to get more people to ride, thus ridership stays low, etc
That's a common misperception. Reality tells us that you don't need all that much density to make transit work. What you need is reliable and frequent service. That's where the funding usually falls short.
When the system here was started it was actually profitable, but increasing operating costs have done for that.
Why is profitability even a concern? We're talking about a public good here.
Not all that many people actually work downtown here proportionately either.
It's true that job growth is generally in the suburbs these days. And I agree that we need to provide transit service to those areas. However, the generally sprawled construction of suburban areas argues against fixed-guideway transportation. You really do need buses to get around out there. You use rail to provide high-capacity transport between employment and residential centers and buses to get around once you hop off the train.
Something that would work well in a lot of areas is an LRT or similar rail system running alongside freeway beltways to get from one suburb to another and buses to shuttle people to/from the rail ring. The problem is political will and commitment to funding. Other countries build systems just like this.
I am sure I didn't describe this well. OK, you could say 'streetcar', but what I'd like to be able to do is call up a 'streetcar' and have it show up, like a taxi, and it can simply carry me, like any car does now. The advantages are still large, if you don't need a driver. Far less parking required, much cheaper and thus better vehicle efficiency and maintenance, and given that it is a light vehicle not much waste on dead heading.
I understand the dream and the appeal of it. But there are a few problems. There's more vehicle weight overall to move around when you use single-occupant vehicles. Dead-heading desn't actually cost that much. I'm remembering this off the top of my head but my recollection is that it takes somewhere around 5 passengers for a bus to recoup operating expenses. That is, there's an efficiency savings moving 5 people in a bus vs. moving five people in individual vehicles. Again, here in the Twin Cities there are very few buses running around with less than five people. And any that do make up the overhead when they carry more than five people, which is quite a bit of the time. There's really not much of anything more efficient than a bus, except rail.
These cars and lines are small enough and light enough to be attached to buildings or even run through the buildings themselves (no emissions, minimal vibrations due to rubber tires, etc.)
No one has ever addressed the additional infrastructure you need around these wonderful skinny, light-weight tracks. Thinks like escape routes and ADA compliance. They don't end up being so skinny and light-weight after all.
My father has been working closely (and is an investor) in one of the PRT systems called taxi2000
Ah, that explains it.
and the vast vast vast majority of their issues getting these systems installed, tested, and in-use on a wide scale is political backrubbing by existing transit authorities attempting to extoll the "virtues" of their systems. There is a phenomenal amount of money wasted in light rail / bus line funding.
Oh really? I wish it were true. Our transit agency is being killed by budget cutbacks. The transit authorities extoll the virtues of their systems because they really do have virtues! The primary one is "field tested and proven to work."
The light rail in Minneapolis that was laid down recently is a perfect demonstration of cost overruns, schedule overruns, interrupted service (and road travel), etc. inherent in the sort of ridiculous attempt at installing rail.
Ok, now you're just spewing misinformation. The Hiawatha line was on time and under budget. It has already surpassed ridership predicted for the year 2020 and that predication included population projections of one million new people in the Twin Cities by 2030. LRT has proven itself to be very effective in the Twin Cities.
PRT / taxi2000 systems could very well actually MAKE money for a city employing such a system since it has such cheap operational costs. No other mass transit system could claim to get anywhere even close. All other mass transit systems widely in use are publicly subsidized all of the time in some manner.
I've got news for you. All transportation is subsidized. It always will be. That's a good thing. Transportation is a public good and as such is should be funded publicly. There is absolutely no reason to require transportation systems to make money. In fact, it's not even wise to do so.
Please look into the money Taxi2000 has received from the state. PRT is just as subsidized as any other form of transportation.
My last light rail travel (on that newer light rail line in Minneapolis) was quite unpleasant; loud (screeching metal) tires, crowded (and hot) train
So your major complaint is that lots of people actually use LRT and it can get a bit noisy?
lots of stops for bridges / ferries / traffic intersections
What are you talking about? We don't have any ferries in the Twin Cities anymore. They've been gone a long time now. There are no LRT stops for bridges (I don't even know what that means) and stops for intersections happen downtown and are the same stops any car would have to make.
infrequent stops (because train platforms are freaking huge and cannot be placed frequently along the route), etc.
Hiawatha stations are about a mile apart. Too far, I agree. Most LRT systems around the country have stations every 1/2 mile. Federal Transit Administration rules are changing such that we should be allowed to build more stations for Central Corridor and other lines.
I hope the idea that light rail is "green" for anything other than point-to-point mass transit for high volumes (between cities, or between airports / stadiums / downtown areas / other mass transit hubs) dies like the horrid idea it is.
I've never heard any serious transit advocate say LRT should be used for anything else but a high-volume central transitway. That's what Hiawatha is. That's why it's so crowded in that train. We still have buses (though that system is shrinking thanks to Governor Pawlenty) because we use the right technology for the right job.
We've had to deal with this PRT nonsense in Minnesota for the last 30 years thanks to the fact that a former U of MN professor came up with the idea.
The truth is that PRT is often an excuse for anti-transit idealogues to delay any real investment in public transit. I've seen good projects delayed and killed due to some legislator bringing up the hairbrained idea of PRT.
Why technically competent people fall for this pipe-dream is beyond me. Here's just a short list of the technical issues I've not seen addressed by anyone:
How do you get people out of elevated pods in an emergency and still claim the low design and construction cost?
I have no confidence we know how to write distributed software to manage even a moderately large deployment, much less a medium-sized metropolitan area. Distributed software is hard and it has to be real-time too, which is also hard.
The elevated guideways will be an eyesore, especially with the infrastructure needed to handle emergencies (see first bullet point).
Oil and other fluids will leak and drip to the ground below. Mitigation will be even more of an eyesore.
The passenger throughput claims are outrageous. They rely on little to no headway between pods and perfect behavior of people. The thought that PRT can handle close to as many trips during congested times as a good LRT system is laughable.
If you read the PRT literature, the argument is not based on technical merit, it's based on fear. All sorts of propaganda about scary bus people and having to ride with strangers (oh no!) gets spewed by PRT supporters.
PRT supporters talk about "new technology" and how rail is "19th century technology." As computing professionals, we know that "old" does not equate to "outdated." In fact it's often just the opposite. "Old" means "proven in real-world situations."
No, PRT is just another way to continue our addiction to single-occupant vehicles and oil. It's another way to kill any real investment in public transit.
One big train or bus logically can only come by every so many minutes. You don't want to wait 15 minutes. Plus it can only follow a specific route.
And PRT can only follow a limited number of routes as well.
For example, my office is 10 minutes away by car. Yet if I were to ride the bus that goes there it would take 1.5 HOURS because first I have to wait 15 minutes for it to show up, then I have to ride downtown to a central station, wait another 15 minutes for the bus going to where I want to go, and then ride that bus. All the way these buses are starting and stopping and go maybe overall 1/2 the speed of a car.
That's a symptom of an underfunded transit system, not a problem with mass transit per se. Most U.S. residents don't have a clue what a real transit system looks like because generally, we don't have them.
I don't have 1.5 hours of free time to spend commuting. Judging by the ridership, nobody else that is gainfully employed does either.
Oh really? Here in Minneapolis, with one of the worst transit systems in the country in terms of fare cost vs. level of service, 40% of the people who work downtown use transit to get there. That's a lot of gainfully employed people.
It's easy to fall for the anti-transit ideaologues' argument using gross averages of ridership rather than looking at the areas transit is actually targeted to serve.
Now, if we had say smart electric taxis that would show up when I need my ride and go directly there at speed, it would be basically a no-brainer. I'd be on it in 5 seconds. Even if it DID go half as fast as a normal car, so what? I can live with 20 mins if it will save me money. I might even do it if it cost the same.
What you're describing already exists: streetcars and Light Rail Transit. LRT is generally faster because it has its own private right-of-way, just like PRT.
Did you know we have a "progressive" tax system in this country?
Actually, no we don't. If we did, capital gains would be taxed at the same rate as regular income. We have a progressive income tax, but that does't count for much when the rich don't get most of their wealth from ordinary income.
And remember that capital gains are taxed at a much lower rate than general income. The rich are very much not paying their fair share. Here in Minnesota, taking the entire effective tax rate into account, the rich pay the least in terms of percentage of income. The middle class pays the most and the poor pay the next-highest amount.
I suspect one will find this to be true everywhere in the U.S. because the system's been set up to make it that way.
You're seeing the wingnut crowd go ballistic over the fact that their ideology was proven false and utterly rejected by the voters. They seem to be particularly active in geek culture thanks to people like ESR who don't like to think that anyone might disagree with their agenda.
These folks seem to think technologically-minded people are part of some monoculture. Remember, diversity is a four-letter word to them.
You mean laws that prevent kids from spending 5+ hours/day on the bus, and the repeal of other laws which wasted those kids' days in the first place?
No, I mean laws that:
Defund transit agencies so transit-dependent people (of whom a disproportionate percentage are minority) can't get around
Retain entrenched discrimination in housing through redlining and other tactics
Fail to fund special education, a disproportionate amount of which is handled in urban schools
Cut state aid to cities, forcing them to raise property taxes and cut after-school and rec programs
Set up school districts so whites need not have anything to do with anyone else of a different color
Fund exurban development by raiding the tax base of cities and inner-ring suburbs to fund sewers, roads and other infrastructure in what used to be farmland, when plenty of space stll exists in further-in cities and suburbs
Give tax cuts rather than invest in our communities
Shall I go on?
You clean out the kids who shouldn't be in a particular school - the illegals go the fuck back to their home countries
Oh, you're one of those. Sorry I wasted your time.
If you reduce taxation, more job creation and more spending happens.
Nope. That has never worked. The only reason Republicans want tax cuts is to blindly follow Grover Norquist to a world where the people have no more say in what actually happens in this country. Drowning government in a bathtub leads to one thing: oligarchy.
We saw this starting to happen once the Republicans finally had the power to implement their full agenda under Bush. Look what happened.
The tax cuts aren't about putting money in your pocket or stimulating the economy. They're about destroying our representative democracy.
Nobody in this debate has ever suggested re-segregating schools.
Sure they have. We're doing it right now. Go check out the demographics of various schools districts in metropolitan areas. Segregation is the de facto standard now. It's not directly legislated to be so, but laws exist which make it an inevitable outcome.
In all of my years of political action at the state level, I have never once heard a Democrat advocate to "simply throw money at a problem without any oversight or planning." But I have heard Republicans call for it by putting words in their colleagues' mouths. No, of course they don't really want to do that. So why even bring it up?
Slashdot Mirror
Well said.
State and federal fuel taxes do not come anywhere close to covering the cost of road maintenance. I don't think most people realize how extremely overbuilt our road network is in the U.S. The fuel taxes only cover about 1/3 of the cost in Minnesota.
The federal highway trust fund is bankrupt. We need to raise the gas tax and do a whole lot more to get us back in the black. Long-term we will have to look for other solutions such as a tax on Vehicle Miles Traveled.
Wrong. The federal highway trust fund is bankrupt because the federal gas tax hasn't kept pace with the cost. Here in Minnesota, only about 1/3 of the cost of roads is covered by state and federal gas taxes and other driving-related fees. The rest comes from property taxes and various other sources.
Actually, we don't pay for the road through gas taxes. Gas taxes have never come anywhere close to paying the cost of maintaining our road system. And now the value has greatly eroded over the decade due to the tax not keeping up with inflation. Here in Minnesota, state and federal gas taxes only pay for about 1/3 of the road cost.
Places like Portland, OR are experimenting with a tax on Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT). I'm not sure whether they're adjusting the tax for vehicle weight, type of fuel, etc. But we certainly have the technology to do it. It seems like a better long-term solution than fuel taxes.
hat I already pay taxes to maintain the roads. I pay a federal tax on gasoline, which is supposed to be used to maintain the interstate highway system.
Except the federal gas tax has lost buying power over the decades as the tax has not kept pace with the cost of maintaining highways. The federal highway trust fund is bankrupt. I'd have more sympathy for your position if you were out advocating that the federal gas tax be raised to cover the full cost of driving (and it's not just road maintenance).
Now all states have laws that say the the electors must vote based on the outcome of the election. The whole original point of EC is irrelevant now and so what we have is basically just a broken popular vote where citizens of different states count differently.
Only if you subscribe to a false idea of what the electoral college is for. The electoral college exists because there was a debate about the voice of small states vs. large states. The electoral college is one compromise reached to address that debate.
It's a complete fallacy that the electoral college exists to make sure the people don't vote for the "wrong" person.
As the GP stated, the reasoning behind the EC was to allow the fancy electors to ignore the state's vote if they thought the people voted incorrectly.
No it isn't. It's to ensure that small states have a voice.
No reasonable human being could possibly object to it, unless you share our forefathers' opinions that the country needs to be protected from the voters.
You misunderstand the purpose of the electoral college. It was not designed to protect the country from voters. It was a compromise between big states and small states. If Iowa knows what's good for them, they'll stick with the electoral college.
The electoral college was put in place so that there would be a check on the power of the uneducated masses
Wrong, that's pop history. The electoral college was put in place as a compromise between big-population states and small-population states. The electoral college gives smaller states a slightly higher influence than they would have under a straight popular vote.
No, the problem really is that unless the density of people is fairly high the required amount of funding PER POTENTIAL PASSENGER is far too high. Ridership is too low, the system cannot realistically be funded well enough to get more people to ride, thus ridership stays low, etc
That's a common misperception. Reality tells us that you don't need all that much density to make transit work. What you need is reliable and frequent service. That's where the funding usually falls short.
When the system here was started it was actually profitable, but increasing operating costs have done for that.
Why is profitability even a concern? We're talking about a public good here.
Not all that many people actually work downtown here proportionately either.
It's true that job growth is generally in the suburbs these days. And I agree that we need to provide transit service to those areas. However, the generally sprawled construction of suburban areas argues against fixed-guideway transportation. You really do need buses to get around out there. You use rail to provide high-capacity transport between employment and residential centers and buses to get around once you hop off the train.
Something that would work well in a lot of areas is an LRT or similar rail system running alongside freeway beltways to get from one suburb to another and buses to shuttle people to/from the rail ring. The problem is political will and commitment to funding. Other countries build systems just like this.
I am sure I didn't describe this well. OK, you could say 'streetcar', but what I'd like to be able to do is call up a 'streetcar' and have it show up, like a taxi, and it can simply carry me, like any car does now. The advantages are still large, if you don't need a driver. Far less parking required, much cheaper and thus better vehicle efficiency and maintenance, and given that it is a light vehicle not much waste on dead heading.
I understand the dream and the appeal of it. But there are a few problems. There's more vehicle weight overall to move around when you use single-occupant vehicles. Dead-heading desn't actually cost that much. I'm remembering this off the top of my head but my recollection is that it takes somewhere around 5 passengers for a bus to recoup operating expenses. That is, there's an efficiency savings moving 5 people in a bus vs. moving five people in individual vehicles. Again, here in the Twin Cities there are very few buses running around with less than five people. And any that do make up the overhead when they carry more than five people, which is quite a bit of the time. There's really not much of anything more efficient than a bus, except rail.
These cars and lines are small enough and light enough to be attached to buildings or even run through the buildings themselves (no emissions, minimal vibrations due to rubber tires, etc.)
No one has ever addressed the additional infrastructure you need around these wonderful skinny, light-weight tracks. Thinks like escape routes and ADA compliance. They don't end up being so skinny and light-weight after all.
My father has been working closely (and is an investor) in one of the PRT systems called taxi2000
Ah, that explains it.
and the vast vast vast majority of their issues getting these systems installed, tested, and in-use on a wide scale is political backrubbing by existing transit authorities attempting to extoll the "virtues" of their systems. There is a phenomenal amount of money wasted in light rail / bus line funding.
Oh really? I wish it were true. Our transit agency is being killed by budget cutbacks. The transit authorities extoll the virtues of their systems because they really do have virtues! The primary one is "field tested and proven to work."
The light rail in Minneapolis that was laid down recently is a perfect demonstration of cost overruns, schedule overruns, interrupted service (and road travel), etc. inherent in the sort of ridiculous attempt at installing rail.
Ok, now you're just spewing misinformation. The Hiawatha line was on time and under budget. It has already surpassed ridership predicted for the year 2020 and that predication included population projections of one million new people in the Twin Cities by 2030. LRT has proven itself to be very effective in the Twin Cities.
PRT / taxi2000 systems could very well actually MAKE money for a city employing such a system since it has such cheap operational costs. No other mass transit system could claim to get anywhere even close. All other mass transit systems widely in use are publicly subsidized all of the time in some manner.
I've got news for you. All transportation is subsidized. It always will be. That's a good thing. Transportation is a public good and as such is should be funded publicly. There is absolutely no reason to require transportation systems to make money. In fact, it's not even wise to do so.
Please look into the money Taxi2000 has received from the state. PRT is just as subsidized as any other form of transportation.
My last light rail travel (on that newer light rail line in Minneapolis) was quite unpleasant; loud (screeching metal) tires, crowded (and hot) train
So your major complaint is that lots of people actually use LRT and it can get a bit noisy?
lots of stops for bridges / ferries / traffic intersections
What are you talking about? We don't have any ferries in the Twin Cities anymore. They've been gone a long time now. There are no LRT stops for bridges (I don't even know what that means) and stops for intersections happen downtown and are the same stops any car would have to make.
infrequent stops (because train platforms are freaking huge and cannot be placed frequently along the route), etc.
Hiawatha stations are about a mile apart. Too far, I agree. Most LRT systems around the country have stations every 1/2 mile. Federal Transit Administration rules are changing such that we should be allowed to build more stations for Central Corridor and other lines.
I hope the idea that light rail is "green" for anything other than point-to-point mass transit for high volumes (between cities, or between airports / stadiums / downtown areas / other mass transit hubs) dies like the horrid idea it is.
I've never heard any serious transit advocate say LRT should be used for anything else but a high-volume central transitway. That's what Hiawatha is. That's why it's so crowded in that train. We still have buses (though that system is shrinking thanks to Governor Pawlenty) because we use the right technology for the right job.
We've had to deal with this PRT nonsense in Minnesota for the last 30 years thanks to the fact that a former U of MN professor came up with the idea.
The truth is that PRT is often an excuse for anti-transit idealogues to delay any real investment in public transit. I've seen good projects delayed and killed due to some legislator bringing up the hairbrained idea of PRT.
Why technically competent people fall for this pipe-dream is beyond me. Here's just a short list of the technical issues I've not seen addressed by anyone:
If you read the PRT literature, the argument is not based on technical merit, it's based on fear. All sorts of propaganda about scary bus people and having to ride with strangers (oh no!) gets spewed by PRT supporters.
PRT supporters talk about "new technology" and how rail is "19th century technology." As computing professionals, we know that "old" does not equate to "outdated." In fact it's often just the opposite. "Old" means "proven in real-world situations."
No, PRT is just another way to continue our addiction to single-occupant vehicles and oil. It's another way to kill any real investment in public transit.
One big train or bus logically can only come by every so many minutes. You don't want to wait 15 minutes. Plus it can only follow a specific route.
And PRT can only follow a limited number of routes as well.
For example, my office is 10 minutes away by car. Yet if I were to ride the bus that goes there it would take 1.5 HOURS because first I have to wait 15 minutes for it to show up, then I have to ride downtown to a central station, wait another 15 minutes for the bus going to where I want to go, and then ride that bus. All the way these buses are starting and stopping and go maybe overall 1/2 the speed of a car.
That's a symptom of an underfunded transit system, not a problem with mass transit per se. Most U.S. residents don't have a clue what a real transit system looks like because generally, we don't have them.
I don't have 1.5 hours of free time to spend commuting. Judging by the ridership, nobody else that is gainfully employed does either.
Oh really? Here in Minneapolis, with one of the worst transit systems in the country in terms of fare cost vs. level of service, 40% of the people who work downtown use transit to get there. That's a lot of gainfully employed people.
It's easy to fall for the anti-transit ideaologues' argument using gross averages of ridership rather than looking at the areas transit is actually targeted to serve.
Now, if we had say smart electric taxis that would show up when I need my ride and go directly there at speed, it would be basically a no-brainer. I'd be on it in 5 seconds. Even if it DID go half as fast as a normal car, so what? I can live with 20 mins if it will save me money. I might even do it if it cost the same.
What you're describing already exists: streetcars and Light Rail Transit. LRT is generally faster because it has its own private right-of-way, just like PRT.
Any kind of infrastructure. Infrastructure allows job growth (buildings, transit, roads, etc.). There's also the ongoing maintenance need.
There are lots of other examples. Research labs, space program, education, environmental initiatives. Too many to list, in fact.
Please don't repeat this completely discredited meme. You only look foolish doing so.
The truth is that the public sector and the private sector both do things very well and very badly. Mostly because human beings run both of them.
There are plenty of examples of effective government programs, just as there are plenty examples of failed private programs.
You think we have a progressive tax system? We most certainly do not. Ask yourself why we give so many tax breaks to rich people.
Actually, no we don't. If we did, capital gains would be taxed at the same rate as regular income. We have a progressive income tax, but that does't count for much when the rich don't get most of their wealth from ordinary income.
And remember that capital gains are taxed at a much lower rate than general income. The rich are very much not paying their fair share. Here in Minnesota, taking the entire effective tax rate into account, the rich pay the least in terms of percentage of income. The middle class pays the most and the poor pay the next-highest amount.
I suspect one will find this to be true everywhere in the U.S. because the system's been set up to make it that way.
Thank you.
Amen. And force them to do a real filibuster, not that ridiculous "gentlemen's agreement" nudge-nudge, wink-wink filibuster.
You're seeing the wingnut crowd go ballistic over the fact that their ideology was proven false and utterly rejected by the voters. They seem to be particularly active in geek culture thanks to people like ESR who don't like to think that anyone might disagree with their agenda.
These folks seem to think technologically-minded people are part of some monoculture. Remember, diversity is a four-letter word to them.
No, I mean laws that:
Shall I go on?
Oh, you're one of those. Sorry I wasted your time.
Nope. That has never worked. The only reason Republicans want tax cuts is to blindly follow Grover Norquist to a world where the people have no more say in what actually happens in this country. Drowning government in a bathtub leads to one thing: oligarchy.
We saw this starting to happen once the Republicans finally had the power to implement their full agenda under Bush. Look what happened.
The tax cuts aren't about putting money in your pocket or stimulating the economy. They're about destroying our representative democracy.
Sure they have. We're doing it right now. Go check out the demographics of various schools districts in metropolitan areas. Segregation is the de facto standard now. It's not directly legislated to be so, but laws exist which make it an inevitable outcome.
In all of my years of political action at the state level, I have never once heard a Democrat advocate to "simply throw money at a problem without any oversight or planning." But I have heard Republicans call for it by putting words in their colleagues' mouths. No, of course they don't really want to do that. So why even bring it up?