- Highways Crumble as Gas Tax Money Is Diverted to Sidewalks
- Cutting the Federal Budget, Line-by-Line
- Join Drew Carey and John Stossel In New York On Friday
- New at Reason
Highways Crumble as Gas Tax Money Is Diverted to Sidewalks
In the Washington Times today, Reason Foundation's Robert Poole explains that when looking at our crumbling, traffic-jammed roads, it is important to note that "25 percent of gas-tax funds are diverted to non-highway uses. A key to fixing the problem is to identify what should be federal and what should be state and local responsibilities. In principle, only the interstate highways - our key arteries for interstate commerce - should rise to the level of the federal government. Other highways, streets, sidewalks, bike paths, local transit lines, etc., are more properly state and local concerns. Reserving the federal Highway Trust Fund just for highway improvements would mean a 25 percent boost in federal highway investment - about $11 billion per year, a good start toward repairing our aging infrastructure."
Cutting the Federal Budget, Line-by-Line
In the Washington Times, Shikha Dalmia details several government agencies that could be cut and never missed: "...the most egregious of all the agencies might be the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). It was founded by President Reagan in the heyday of the Cold War to contain communism. Communism has since evaporated, and democracy has spread like wildfire in the former Soviet Union. Still, President Obama proposes to hand the NED $109 million this year. This despite the fact that NED has been dogged by controversy, the least of which being that it once spent $1.5 million to defend democracy in that Soviet bastion called France. Worse, although NED gets all its funding from the government, it is structured like a private entity over whose board - an improbable hybrid of representatives of business, unions and other concerns - Congress has little control. The upshot is that sitting presidents have used it to do things abroad that Congress wouldn't approve. In the mid-1980s, for instance, it directed funding to the political opponents of the then-president of Costa Rica - long a beacon of democracy - simply because he opposed Reagan's Nicaragua policy."
Dalmia: Finding Health Care Solutions and Compromises
Join Drew Carey and John Stossel In New York On Friday
You are invited to join The Price Is Right Host Drew Carey and John Stossel as they discuss the upcoming Reason Saves Cleveland series on Stossel's Fox Business program. If you'd like to be part of the studio audience, the taping is Friday, March 5th at 4:45 pm in New York City. For tickets or more information, please email Alexandra Martin at alexandra.martin@foxnews.com.
Video: Drew Carey Discusses Reason Saves Cleveland
New at Reason
March Issue of Reason Magazine
Video: Matt Welch Discusses Government Regulation on CNBC
Radley Balko: 4.5 SWAT Raids Per Day
Radley Balko: Is Texas About To Execute Another Innocent Man?
Reason.tv's Nanny of the Month for February 2010: Kansas State Rep. Robert Olson
Video: What Health Care Can Learn From Pet Care
The Unfulfilled Promise of "Constitutional Conservatism"
Everyone Who Knows What They're Talking About Agrees with Me
