No one likes paying for the same thing twice.
So what is it with these High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes
that charge people for the privilege of being able to drive on
roads and highways financed by motor fuels excise taxes?
They’re sprouting up all over the country. Or rather, the
infrastructure for charging motorists to use existing roads is
sprouting up all over the country. Roads that were built (and
continue to be maintained) with money extracted from these same
people via motor fuels taxes, which average about 40 cents per
gallon (see here
for details).
In my home state of Virginia, for example, the last
governor (Tim Kaine) wanted to give what amounts to taxing
authority to a private, for-profit company (Transurban of
Australia) over a major portion of I-95/I-395 in
Northern Virginia, near D.C. — for the next 80 years.
Drivers would have to tithe to Transurban for the privilege
of using these roads — roads that were built for public use and
with funds derived from the motor fuels taxes that all
drivers must pay, every time they fill up.
Naturally, there’s to be no reduction in the motor fuels
tax, nor any rebate or credit given to drivers who pay the
current taxes but don’t elect to use the for-profit HOT
lanes.
A decent case can be made for privately financed and
constructed toll roads that charge user fees. If, for example, a
private company can gin up the capital from investors
(not taxpayers) necessary to build a new road or highway
— and restricts use of the finished road to drivers who pay to
drive — fine. That’s free market capitalism in action. It could
also be a great deal for motorists. There would be less traffic
— and possibly, the owners of the private toll road could set
higher (or even no) speed limits, since the state would not be
involved.
But it’s outrageous to take existing and publicly financed,
public-access infrastructure and turn it into an ATM for a
privately held, for-profit vendor.
How is this any different from granting, say, “Justice
Enterprises, Inc.” operating control of your local county
courthouse — and giving it the power to hit you up for $5 every
time you need to get a legal document filed or want to contest a
traffic ticket?
Oh, yeah — I forget. They already do charge us
for contesting traffic tickets.
And countless municipalities all around the country have
turned over aspects of traffic enforcement to private, for-profit
companies — taking a cut of the proceeds themselves, of
course.
That’s bad enough. Big government teaming up with Big
Business to make a profit off the enforcement of laws is quite
literally the Mother of All Corruption.
But these HOT lanes are even more depraved because there is
no longer even a weak attempt at justification based on the
punishing of wrongdoing, or at the very least, law-breaking. With
a photo radar or red light camera ticket, the argument can be
made that, hey, you broke the law — and thus, the
fine.
It’s certainly obnoxious to know that part of the fine you
get hit with ends up going to help finance braces for the
teenaged kid of the CEO of the private company that runs the
automated cash machines — but there’s at least some comfort in
knowing there’s a connection, however tenuous, between your
actions and the handing over of your hard-earned money.
But HOT lanes?
All you’re guilty of is wanting to use the roads you
already paid for without being dunned again for the
privilege.
An irony of the situation in Virginia is that it was a
Democrat governor, Tim Kaine — who continues to serve as
chairman of the Democratic National Committee — who was pushing
the HOT Lane Hustle. Isn’t it supposed to be greedhead
Republicans who want to privatize everything — and turn
the entire clunky apparatus of government into a nationwide
system for Making People Pay?
Apparently, Democrat pols like Kaine are just as eager to
dip their beaks.
Keep it all in mind next time you stop for a
fill-up.
