Saturday's Cavuto on Business was guest hosted by Charles Payne, who is among the elite club of the Uncle Ruckuses that Fox 'News' will turn to when they are looking for some ethnic diversity. He was discussing the fuel surcharge tax that some states are adding to gas prices in order to maintain/improve their roads and bridges. Well on Fox, that is forbidden. If bridges and roads are crumbling, let the market decide who is going to get a private contract and enrich corporation at the expense of the taxpayers' lives who were lost. It's just collateral damage, and this bunch was five to one against ever charging much needed taxes to keep the roads in good condition.
Historically fatal disasters escape the Conserva-pundits, who quickly forgot the thirteen lives lost in the Minneapolis I-35 bridge collapse. Charles Gasparino whined about projects that failed in big cities, like the Big Dig in Boston, so therefore, one failure means no upkeep for those roads. What Gasparino was referencing was the failure of private entities, like Bechtel, to spend the money allocated to them on quality control. Sorry, Charlie, this looks like an example of private enterprise failure, not government failure.
Gerri Willis continued that she's upset that some of the funds allocated to the 'slush fund' aren't being spent wisely. How dare they landscape medians? She fails to realize that these medians can be problematic if they are left un-manicured and rain and wind can cause road blockages. She doesn't care about safety of course.
Scott Martin whined that some of the tax money has gone to deficit reduction, which was, in large part, caused by Republican Governors attempting to slash taxes on their rich friends. Martin credits more fuel efficiency, delayed licenses by youth and elderly Americans not driving as much to the lowered per capita driving amounts. So we aren't driving as much, the previous increases in fuel tax went to deficits, so I guess we don't need to fund infrastructure? If you can follow his logic, if we aren't driving as much, we don't need any investment in crumbling infrastructure. Derp!
Lisa Boothe chimed in about those damned liberals, who can never get enough money, because they always want more. This comes from a woman who had nothing to say about two gigantic foreign wars that were left off the books under that fine Bush43 Administration. A few billion dollars in infrastructure can't compare to the TRILLIONS spent on those wars. Meanwhile, her GOP 'allies' are not even financing the wounded vets that desperately need care after sacrificing for her freedom. We could go on and on about misappropriation of funds.
The sole voice of reason, Adam Lashinsky was trying to refute the idiotic comparison to charging sales tax on fuel, to bailing out Greece. He tried to explain that we have a pretty good history of using that money wisely, of course we have to go back to Eisenhower's National Highway system
'We have the ability to spend this money responsibly.'
Lashinsky has proven, in the past, to be a meek opponent to all the nonsense-talkers.
The conclusion of this segment was your standard illogical Fox 'News' mumbo jumbo. We should never fund roads because liberals want more money. I guess no Republicans drive on publicly funded roads? What a colossal waste of airtime.
