Halting TIF’s Rapid Growth
Tax-increment financing (TIF) costs taxpayers around $10 billion per year and is growing as fast as 10 percent per year, according to a new report, “Crony Capitalism and Social Engineering,” published by the Cato Institute. Though originally created to help renew “blighted” neighborhoods, TIF today is used primarily as an economic development tool for areas […]
When Is a Fee a Tax?
Years ago, Oregon voters approved a ballot measure that required a vote of the people before any local increase in taxes or user fees. As the Antiplanner supports user fees as a way of improving government efficiency, I asked one of the measure’s authors why he included user fees in the measure. “You know if […]
Are Auto Accidents a Disease?
Somebody thinks they are. The Centers for Disease Control just released a study saying that crash-related deaths cost $41 billion a year. This smells to me like a government agency seeking more funding by jumping into an area outside of its core mission. The first thing to note about this study is that it is […]
Market Asymmetry
Along with Michael Lewis’ The Big Short, Gregory Zuckerman’s The Greatest Trade Ever shows that at least some investors were aware that the housing bubble of the mid-2000s was likely to collapse, with severe repercussions on the economy. The book (whose alternate subtitle is “How One Man Bet Against the Markets and Made $20 Billion”) […]
Driverless Cars vs. High-Speed Rail
The Los Angeles Times says the California high-speed rail project “is a train wreck” that has become “a monument to the ways poor planning, mismanagement and political interference can screw up major public works.” But the newspaper still favors “Obama’s inspiring vision of a nation crisscrossed by bullet trains, providing cleaner, safer and cheaper competition […]
The Wrong Measures
Late last week, with great fanfare, the Brookings Institution released a new report on “Transit and Jobs in America.” Too many people, the report found, live too far away from a transit stop, so it urged more investments in transit so that more people can use it. Data in the report itself discredited this logic. […]
LaHood Lied about Michigan HSR
When Immobility Secretary Ray LaHood gave $200 million to Michigan for high-speed rail last Monday, he claimed this grant would bring “trains up to speeds of 110 mph on a 235-mile section of the Chicago to Detroit corridor, reducing trip times by 30 minutes.” That’s a lie. In fact, the state itself says the top […]
Memphis Blues
The Antiplanner has never visited Memphis, so when I was watching a video of the flooding in Memphis, I was surprised to see a huge pyramid. “Looks like a government boondoggle to me,” I said. Flickr photo by Exothermic. Sure enough. The Pyramid Arena opened in 1991 after being built at a cost of $65 […]
TSA Helps Kill High-Speed Trains
One of the punchlines of President Obama’s 2011 State of the Union address had to do with high-speed rail: “For some trips,” he said to “laughter and applause,” “it will be faster than flying–without the pat-down.” Now the Transportation Security Administration has announced a new policy that will eliminate this frequently used but inane argument […]
Latest High-Speed Rail Grant
Secretary of Immobility Ray LaHood announced yesterday the latest–and possibly last–round of high-speed rail grants, this one from redistribution of the $2.4 billion rejected by the state of Florida. As the Antiplanner noted in March, LaHood could have given the entire $2.4 billion to California, sending a signal that the administration remains serious about building […]
Notes from All Over
The Economist published an article claiming that traffic is worse in the United States than Europe and lamenting that the U.S. was not building high-speed rail. Wendell Cox responds with a data-filled article basically showing that everything The Economist said was wrong. John Charles of the Cascade Policy Institute just published Light Rail, Streetcars & […]
Colorado Bridge Enterprise: A Case Study in Contravening Colorado’s Constitution
In 2009 the General Assembly passed Senate Bill 09-108, more commonly known as FASTER. Signed by Governor Bill Ritter, the bill relies on distortions and deliberate misdirections to subvert Colorado’s Constitution and silence the voice of the people. The bill depends on continued silence for its provisions to move forward. Under FASTER, Colorado families are being forced to pay an unconstitutional tax of almost $100 million annually. This tax hits everyone who registers a vehicle in the state squarely in the pocketbook—a tax that was enacted directly by the legislature without a vote of the people.
