CSA's commerce clause

Originally posted by normbenign
"Entrepreneurs are hardly immune to boondoggles."

Yes, but they use their own money, and are usually more prudent when putting it at risk.

A number of very successful railroads were built without government, in fact arguably the best. If a few landowners could have stopped one route, other landowners probably would have jumped at the opportunity to sell. Force isn't the only way to accomplish things.

Nonsense. Prudence has hardly been a trademark of capitalists though they have been adept at getting other people to pay for their errors.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Who does that? Private debt has increased over the last 30 years at a much faster pace than government debt.

Touché

Still, I do it.

A friend of mine down the block is about to be kicked out of his home for not paying his property tax. If you don't pay your bills and you're an ordinary person, sooner or later they come for you.

Originally posted by sh76
Touché

Still, I do it.

A friend of mine down the block is about to be kicked out of his home for not paying his property tax. If you don't pay your bills and you're an ordinary person, sooner or later they come for you.

So far the government is paying its bills. And investors still seem anxious to loan it money even at historically low interest rates. Go figure.

Originally posted by sh76
Touché

Still, I do it.

A friend of mine down the block is about to be kicked out of his home for not paying his property tax. If you don't pay your bills and you're an ordinary person, sooner or later they come for you.

The US government comes for you when you don't pay the bills, not Scrooge McDuck.

Originally posted by no1marauder
So far the government is paying its bills. And investors still seem anxious to loan it money even at historically low interest rates. Go figure.

It's rather easy to pay your bills when you can print money at will.

Originally posted by sh76
The interstates are a comprehensive system that would have been impossible to plan and execute without a central planning system. It's possible that most states would have built their own limited access highways, but they'd never have the systematic continuity and efficiency of the interstate system.

The reality is that most of the interstate system was built, and is now maintained at the State level. So a bureaucrat in DC drew a map. Are we certain that bureaucrat even knew the land, or the people, or who would be displaced? In the '60s right in the middle of the building of the interstate system, I witnessed many protracted fights at the local level both in Boston and Detroit over the routing of the interstates. Most of the land was taken under eminent domain by local entities. Almost all the actual building was done by private contractors, almost always union contractors favored by big government.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Who does that? Private debt has increased over the last 30 years at a much faster pace than government debt.

How's that working out? Good googamooga, the people follow the example of the politicians and are as irresponsible as those they elect.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Nonsense. Prudence has hardly been a trademark of capitalists though they have been adept at getting other people to pay for their errors.

The century long policy of easy money, expanding credit, and low interest tends to make even wise men foolish. That is way bailing out banks, insurance companies and auto makers will lead to more of the same.

Originally posted by sh76
Touché

Still, I do it.

A friend of mine down the block is about to be kicked out of his home for not paying his property tax. If you don't pay your bills and you're an ordinary person, sooner or later they come for you.

The government has the guns. Police and military protect their "right" to do just as they please, inflate the money, raise the taxes, but never consider cutting spending.

Originally posted by normbenign
The reality is that most of the interstate system was built, and is now maintained at the State level. So a bureaucrat in DC drew a map. Are we certain that bureaucrat even knew the land, or the people, or who would be displaced? In the '60s right in the middle of the building of the interstate system, I witnessed many protracted fights at the local lev ...[text shortened]... ing was done by private contractors, almost always union contractors favored by big government.

It's getting boring to correct your constant flow of misinformation. In fact:

The final estimate of the cost of the Interstate System was issued in 1991. It estimated that the total cost would be $128.9 billion, with a Federal share of $114.3 billion.

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/faq.htm#question4

So the Feds provided 90% of the funding. This would have been 0% under the CSA version of the Commerce Clause. It's abundantly clear that the system wouldn't have existed if left to the States.

Originally posted by no1marauder
It's getting boring to correct your constant flow of misinformation. In fact:

The final estimate of the cost of the Interstate System was issued in 1991. It estimated that the total cost would be $128.9 billion, with a Federal share of $114.3 billion.

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/faq.htm#question4

So the Feds provi ...[text shortened]... ce Clause. It's abundantly clear that the system wouldn't have existed if left to the States.

So the funding was provided for by a Federal gas tax collected at local gas stations, and forwarded to Washington, DC.

The money after typical bureaucratic waste, was sent back to the States where the actual work was contracted for and done.

Under the CSA commerce clause, nothing would have prevented individual States or localities from determining transportation need, and cooperating with neighboring States.

Nothing is made clear by your distortion of facts.

Originally posted by sh76
Yeah; now if only that effective federal government could learn how to balance a budget like the rest of us have to...

A personal budget of a person or family is not the greatest analogy to the federal budget, which I suspect you know such. Further, it makes sense for the federal government to run a deficit at times inapplicable to a person. One example is if the Russians or Chinese invaded. A person or family generally does not have to borrow to fund a war against foreign invaders and prevent the dissolution of our country by Russian or Chinese military occupiers. With that said, the federal government should continue to both increase efficienty and to prioritize. Otherwise, it will become long-term to grow out of the federal debt.

Originally posted by normbenign
So the funding was provided for by a Federal gas tax collected at local gas stations, and forwarded to Washington, DC.

The money after typical bureaucratic waste, was sent back to the States where the actual work was contracted for and done.

Under the CSA commerce clause, nothing would have prevented individual States or localities from determining ...[text shortened]... , and cooperating with neighboring States.

Nothing is made clear by your distortion of facts.

Puzzling that if it was soooooooooooooooooooo easy for the States to cooperate and build a national highway system, they neglected to do for the first 170 years of the nation's existence.

This is just a typical "holding your breath until you turn blue" response from you; without the allocation of Federal money based on the powers wisely granted to that government by the Framers (and sought to be denied to a central government by the backward thinking creators of the CSA), no national transportation infrastructure would have been created and economic progress would have been seriously impeded.

Originally posted by moon1969
A personal budget of a person or family is not the greatest analogy to the federal budget, which I suspect you know such. Further, it makes sense for the federal government to run a deficit at times inapplicable to a person. One example is if the Russians or Chinese invaded. A person or family generally does not have to borrow to fund a war against fore ...[text shortened]... icienty and to prioritize. Otherwise, it will become long-term to grow out of the federal debt.

A prudent individual will at some time operate at a deficit. Our government does it or has done it for decades at a time, and has dug a debt hole too deep to find a way out.

There hasn't been a credible threat of invasion of the US, since the war of 1812.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Puzzling that if it was soooooooooooooooooooo easy for the States to cooperate and build a national highway system, they neglected to do for the first 170 years of the nation's existence.

This is just a typical "holding your breath until you turn blue" response from you; without the allocation of Federal money based on the powers wisely gra ...[text shortened]... frastructure would have been created and economic progress would have been seriously impeded.

For the first 170 years, auto and truck travel didn't demand such a system. One of Truman's big projects back in Missouri was road building. Lots of roads were built prior to the Civil War, but rail and water remained the preferred transport method.