Topic: Are Obama & Congress about to open Pandora's Box?

[Libertas]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/white-house-opens-door-to-tolls-on-interstate-highways-removing-long-standing-prohibition/2014/04/29/5d2b9f30-cfac-11e3-b812-0c92213941f4_story.html

Good Lord!  Can you imagine the explosion in taxation?!  And can you imagine massive amounts of funds diverted from the intended purpose like everything else and wasted on an industrial scale, like everything else?!

Stinks to high-heaven of antother funds-to-unions scheme too!

   Had enough of this bullsplatter?!

[AlanS]

I see myself catching a lot more Americana on my travels.

[Weisshaupt]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/white-house-opens-door-to-tolls-on-interstate-highways-removing-long-standing-prohibition/2014/04/29/5d2b9f30-cfac-11e3-b812-0c92213941f4_story.html

Good Lord!  Can you imagine the explosion in taxation?!  And can you imagine massive amounts of funds diverted from the intended purpose like everything else and wasted on an industrial scale, like everything else?!

Stinks to high-heaven of antother funds-to-unions scheme too!

   Had enough of this bullsplatter?!

And the public pays 2.4 Trillion in taxes to the Fed for what reason?  Indian Brave Elibieth Warren please call your office. Your govt doesn't pay for anything I use.  I can't use your schools. I will pay my state for your roads.  You are shrinking the size of the military, so I have to assume you need LESS money there..  so what "services" are you providing that make it so I didn't build that?

This will of course pretty much result in NO TRUCKING.  Its obviously for Warren Buffet's railroad business.

[Libertas]

Yeah, good catch on that Buffet angle, forgot about that clown for a minute...

[warpmine]

How much of those dedicated fuel tax money going to build things nobody but the politician's cronies get rich off govt projects like bullet trains, electric cars with free charging stations...?

There is one insurmountable fact, when liberals run the govt everything is at odds with everything else.

[richb]

All it will do is put massive amount of large trucks on local roads.  And I mean MASSIVE!  People would have no idea.   I live in a area that is already overrun with large trucks  here in Northwest Indiana, the world's busiest truck route.   Its busy because many truckers are avoiding Chicago as they go cross country,  and the tollroads (Chicago Skyway & Indiana Toll Road).    Trucker avoid toll roads when they can (hard to do in the Chicago area).   Then there is a scale that truckers avoid so that throws even more trucks on local roads.

Shipping has small margins as it is,  and trucker pay is declining rapidly as it is.    Rates would have to increase (they probably should to some extent no matter) to cover tolls, or the extra expenses of avoiding toll roads.   Trucker pay would decrease even more, more experienced truckers would leave the business for better paying jobs,  safety would decrease as more trucks hit local roads with more newer drivers,  local roads would have more wear and tear because of extra trucks.    There would be far more accidents on local roads,  many very bad ones too. 

They manage to come up with some terrible ideas don't they? 

[Alphabet Soup]

Interesting - and  timely.

Washington state just had a special election where they proposed doubling the yearly vehicle license tabs to pay for all the mistakes they made with the transportation budget. We were outspent greater than 20:1 but it failed miserably.

Even in a leftist dominated state people are getting tired of being screwed hard and then sent packing without so much as cab fare.

[Libertas]

They do that stuff Rich and then the pol's will come down hard on the truckers...which may be their angle anyway...a public takeover of another industry, control the flow of goods, guess what, more control over people!

Hope people are fed up 'Soup, cause these clowns will never cease coming up with schemes to fund their insatiable and unsustainable welfare madness.

I expect school districts are mostly the same all over, we got 'em here where there can be several levy votes in one fricken year because the greedy don't-understand-effing-NO! clowns will not stop until people are forced to give them what they want!

When the flare goes up the level of payback coming for these clowns is going to be biblical...

[ToddF]

They're going to need that black box in your car for sure, just to see how much you need to pay.

[Weisshaupt]

All it will do is put massive amount of large trucks on local roads.  And I mean MASSIVE!  People would have no idea.   I live in a area that is already overrun with large trucks  here in Northwest Indiana, the world's busiest truck route.   Its busy because many truckers are avoiding Chicago as they go cross country,  and the tollroads (Chicago Skyway & Indiana Toll Road).    Trucker avoid toll roads when they can (hard to do in the Chicago area).   Then there is a scale that truckers avoid so that throws even more trucks on local roads.

Oh they will just pass laws forbidding vehicles over a certain weight from using the local roads - perhaps even for local deliveries..(smaller trucks are more "green" you know.. never you mind how many trips to restock they make..) . And everyone will support it too, because they are tired of the constant Semi trailers coming down their suburban feeder street. 

Its just another job killing, economy mangling initiative brought to you by the rabid racist, anti-freedom Bigot in the White House who WANTS Americans ( especially white suburban ones)   to suffer.

And a lot of Trunking has a pretty F'd up wage system. .  I don't know about long haul stuff, but my Brother in Law used to do local deliveries for a Bakery to supermarkets.  He would deliver the goods and keep them stocked, and remove stales.  He would Pay for the bread that went into his truck.  He would then deliver it to the stores in his route area that took delivery.   He would get paid for the bread by the local store a rate - NEGOTIATED AND SET  BY THE BAKERY - for the bread he delivered to the store , when he would then be responsible to keep stocked ( not the store owner)  - so he would have to drive around and check to see how much bread a store had sold.  He got  paid some % refund for the "stales" he returned to the bakery - but he lost money on the transaction so was incented to not stock more bread than actually sold.... and his truck, insurance and gas were all on him to pay.  So He picks up a product at a set price, sells it at a set price and basically kept the difference, but those prices were UNAFFECTED by fuel costs - so the Bakery  wouldn't see fuel costs, truck maintenance costs, etc, and could sell your route to someone else if you didn't perform.. ( a route is a  "privilege" you paid money for - to delivery goods for that bakery in that territory. )  So yes, it was a racket, and a BS one at that.  But in that situation, the prices just go up till there is no one willing to do it for that ever shrinking margin, and you loose a huge asset (routes cost 60-80K)  if you don't, and you have no way to raise your prices.  It was unbeleiveble to me that this was the way it worked.

[Libertas]

Yes, the beatings will continue...and intensify...

Oh, and MNHawk, the prog's in Minnestupid are always lusting after that black box...

They try that shyt, they're gonna know how that black box feeeeels!   

[IronDioPriest]

Grinding the world's greatest economy to a halt. I never imagined it could be done so easily; so quickly, or that the American people would be so blind to it as it happens.

[richb]

Trucks already have the "black" box,  in the form of the electronic log book.  So they know when that truck is moving or not.   I have heard stories of drivers being fired for moving their trucks when they weren't working.   Only the remaining ma and pa drivers still have paper log books,  and I imagine that won't be allowed much longer, if it hasn't already been.

The recent (federal) regulation changes has taken yet another good chuck of pay out of truckers pockets.   A friend said it has cost him about a quarter to a third of his pay!    Also it made it so he couldn't get home every weekend,  as with the old regulations he had figured out how to manage to get home.   Not possible anymore,  he has to park where he is.  Which isn't his driveway anymore.    He said the new regulations have probably decreased safety........

He managed to find a local route,  so he can be home every night.   I imagine he is making half of what he was before.    He sold all his "toys" so I know he is working for a lot less.   Glad he is home with his kids, but he has another on the way.   Glad I am not in his shoes,  because he has no other way to make a living barely getting out of high school.

Another guy I know has his own trucking company.   He says trucker pay is now lower now then it was in the 1970's!   This is not adjusted for inflation or anything.   He said by the hour,  truckers make less per hour then they were back then.    Wow.    He is not the only one who has said that,  as one of the trucker shows,  the owner was talking about how the pay had never gone up since the 1970's.   

Amazing that anyone even is willing to drive anymore. 

[Libertas]

That is amazing Rich.

And I hear ads in Minnie here (just this morning again!) for somebody pushing local day drivers.

Has to be getting harder and harder to find anybody to do any kind of driving in this horsecrap environment.