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We complain the state is not maintaining our highways and bridges. In order to find out why that is I tried to find out what Maine was actually spending on its roads and bridges. A search of the Maine Budget did not uncover a line item for this spending that would enable you to determine a definitive answer. On the other hand, it is easy to determine the revenue stream that is supposed to cover the cost of this operation.
Both the state and the federal government charge a tax on fuel that is supposedly to go toward maintaining the state and federal highways. When it comes to maintenance, the federal government does not maintain federal highways, that responsibility is left up to the states. If you add up the tax revenue on gasoline alone in the state of Maine it was easy to determine the revenue from existing data. The reason, the state makes sure that the vendors of gasoline and diesel pay the tax. The federal tax on gasoline alone is $0.184 per gallon and Maine sold approximately 675 million gallons in 2017. That constitutes a revenue stream of $124 million. When you add in the state tax at $0.295 per gallon you end up with total revenue of over $323 million. This does not include diesel fuel tax revenue, vehicle excise taxes and license fees, all of which by law are supposed to go to fund the construction and maintenance of the state’s highways and bridges. It is not ridiculous to assume the addition of these amounts would probably double the previous figure but let’s just assume it is $500 million.
Isn’t it strange that whenever the state wants to build a new bridge to replace one they failed to maintain, it always has to be financed with bonds? Surprise, surprise, it is the same with schools, fire stations, town halls, police stations, and any other government owned asset. The reason is the revenue is used to fund services that if people were taxed to pay they would immediately balk.
The answer is the politicians have been cooking the books to buy votes, because if they taxed, as required by law, to pay for all these things they were never chartered to do, they would be thrown out of office. It is why your government would be bankrupt if it weren’t borrowing ever devaluing money to pay current expenses. Some time back Detroit actually declared bankruptcy. We haven’t learned what the end result was and Detroit’s problems seemed to have disappeared over night. Then there was the State of California, in the same plight. Now it is threatening to secede and form its own country. Most recently it was the Territory of Puerto Rico. It too has disappeared from the news cycle. The only explanation is that the politicians have found a way to extricate them from their problems while not divulging how they did it. Does the $20 trillion debt seem clearer to you now?
The compromise on the most recent federal budget tells you a lot about the priorities of our politicians. In order to get the budget passed the compromise was the Democrats conceded to spend more on the military industrial complex that we do not need and the Republicans agreed to spend more on the welfare state that keeps growing. Everyone was happy but the revenue to pay for it all came up short and the deficit is expected to be another $1 trillion. As I have pointed out often on the blog and detailed what is being done and how it was accomplished in my two books, it is a system that cannot be sustained. If you watched Tucker Carlson last night you heard one Senator who is opposed to the deal but admitted he was powerless to stop it.