🚀 go-pugleaf

Miriam Jackson (miriam@tara.gps.caltech.edu) wrote:
: I've lived in San Francisco (Albeit briefly) and Los Angeles and,
: granted, the public tranit system in S.F. is far superior to L.A. and
: many other U.S. cities (try Columbus, Ohio without a car) but that
: doesn't mean it's good.  
: ...
: Count me in for doubling gas prices in California.

What is your definition of good? In SF you are no more than 2 blocks
from a bus stop. The buses run every 15 minutes during the day.

Also there is a fatal flaw in all this talk about higher gas taxes.
The fatal flaw is the idea the extra money will be well spent on expanding
and improving mass transit. The reality is a large part of the money
will be wasted on political patronage and pork barrel projects that
have nothing to do with mass transit.

A perfect example is the tobacco tax in California. It was supposed
to be spent on ONLY on anti-smoking programs. The revenue was immediately
diverted into the general tax fund and a fraction of the money
raised was taken from the general fund to provide some anti-smoking
efforts to meet the letter of the law while violating the supposed
intent. 

So what is more likely to happen is the extra money will be 
get you nothing and cost you more for that nothing. Your food,
clothing, household goods, etc. will all cost more because
the higher tax will mean higher transportation cost. You
can be sure the merchants will pass on as much of that extra
cost to you as they can possibly do.

			   Danny Low
    "Question Authority and the Authorities will question You"
	   Valley of Hearts Delight, Silicon Valley
	     HP NSD   dlow@ppg01.sc.hp.com