1. A reader from Vancouver wrote in to let Stephen and me know about a proposed policy to tax foreign investors at a higher rate than local property owners. Support for this policy is growing among residents, and with a mayoral election this Saturday, some are hoping to get candidates to endorse the … [Read more...]
New funding for roads in Georgia
The Georgia Department of Transportation recently approved $102 million in projects to improve the state's infrastructure. The department gave the go ahead on these projects as the state is in the midst of a debate over a new proposed one percent sales tax to help fund infrastructure.Highway … [Read more...]
Before there were stimulus projects
In his new book, Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America, Richard White explores the financing of railroads in the American West and the political process behind it. In history books, this accomplishment is often looked on as a heroic feat of engineering and perseverance, … [Read more...]
Not Marshmallows, but a Really, REALLY Big Lollipop
In the last post, commenter AWP helped me realize that the marshmallow mountain analogy could be improved upon, since one person eating a marshmallow prevented another person from eating that same marshmallow. But the road cannot be subdivided as simply. Yes, a nit-picky implication of the … [Read more...]
When are user fees just redirected sales taxes?
Ben Ross at Greater Greater Washington has an excellent post about the pernicious habit of states (and maybe the federal government?) mislabeling sales taxes as user fees. Sorry for pulling such a long bit, but it's good: Maryland is considering raising its gas tax. This long-overdue measure would … [Read more...]
If highways push traffic onto local roads, why not toll them too?
Peter Gordon blogs about a paper he presented at the Transportation Research Board conference in DC: My friends and I just presented this paper at the Transportation Research Board meetings in Washington DC. We tested the effects of tolling Los Angeles' freeways in the peak hours (we tested 10 … [Read more...]
The roots of anti-density sentiment
Matt Yglesias, Kevin Drum, and Ryan Avent have been discussing the political economy of anti-density regulations, and I have a lot of comments, but I'm not sure I have the time (or, really, the patience) to air all of them. So, we'll see how long this post gets.First of all, I think all this … [Read more...]
The origin of user fees?
I just started reading Paving the Way: New York Road Building and the American State, 1880-1956by Michael R. Fein, and though I don't have time to talk as much about it as I'd like, I will say that I'm only a couple pages in and I can already tell it's going to be great. Its thesis is essentially … [Read more...]