Some proposals are so shocking and not common that, no matter how rational or sensible, we cannot legitimately call them “common sense.”
Could this be one?
You tell me.
Congress is right now struggling to pass a highway funding bill. Authorized funding by the federal government on roads ends with the passing of this month, July. So, blogs Scott Shackford at Reason, “the legislature has to pass something. Because the legislature has to pass something, people are trying to squeeze everything into it.”
And our illustrious president wants to revive the recently dead, the Export-Import Bank. “When he was a senator, Barack Obama knew the program was nothing but corporate welfare,” writes Shackford. “But now as president, he has flip-flopped and is trying to keep the institution alive.”
I don’t know if the prez will ultimately succeed, cajoling Congress to revive the monster by stuffing it into the roads bill, but at least “Sen. Marco Rubio has introduced an amendment to the highway bill that would kill the bank and unload its assets to the treasury.”
Go, Rubio! Getting rid of the Ex-Im Bank is just anti-crony common sense.
So what’s the “uncommon” sense? This out-of-the-mainstream notion: We don’t need a federal transportation bill at all. It’s not as if states cannot secure funding for roads. (They already do.) Devolve the whole Interstate system back onto the states!
Radical? Maybe. But the federal government just spends and spends without much sense. Distribute the responsibility for roads to the states; let Congress figure out how to manage its remaining tasks.
For a change.
I think this is … Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
3 replies on “Forget Frankenstein”
I am with you, but I would not devolve them to the States, I would sell them to private undividuals or entities. Turnpikes were initially private, and should returned to that status.
All government services, with the exception of continental and world wars, commenced in and were usurped from the private sector, return them from wench they came. t
The Constitution charges the Federal Government with three responsibilities
1) Post Office (consistently poorly run at a deficit)
2) Post Roads (our highway system is deteriorating)
3) Defense (Obama is dismantling our military as our enemies around the world are arming)
Everything else, of which the Federal Government has taken control, has been usurped.
I would have no issue with the limitation of the Federal Government’s economic intrusion to the three enumerated duties.
I would further suggest that the post roads are not necessarily the interstate system, which would better be privatized and its prices naturally controlled by the competition with the governmentally provided surface post roads. Additionally I would point out the postal service is not necessarily a monopoly.