Indiana's Republican legislative leadership: "The one thing, however, that has always stuck in my throat is the devotion of the Mandarins to Crony Capitalism."

Wait -- this is Democratic Party crony capitalism. Oops.

An interesting perspective, and I enjoy Huston's use of the term "mandarins," a noun that originates in China, but has been adapted for wider, more humorous use.

6. an influential or powerful government official or bureaucrat.
7. a member of an elite or powerful group or class, as in intellectual or cultural milieus: the mandarins of the art world.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a train to Indy ready for boarding. Except I don't.

HUSTON: The Statehouse Mandarins push transportation tax, by Tom Charles Huston (CNHI Indiana)

The members of the General Assembly have barely warmed their seats and the fury is already reaching pitched levels on social media. It is over the proposal by the new Republican governor (washed into office by the Trump landslide) and the Republican legislative leadership (known affectionately as the Mandarins) to hike gasoline taxes and impose a number of new fees designed to raise an additional $1.2 billion a year for highway and bridge construction and maintenance ...

 ... I don’t like the mix of taxes the Legislature has fashioned, which in my view impose a disproportionate burden on lower-income Hoosiers, and I have opposed the continuing shift of the tax burden from businesses to individuals. On the other hand, with property tax relief I think the overall tax burden on Hoosiers is not excessive and in some instances is less than what is reasonably required for state and local governments to do the things that need to be done. This is certainly a minority view among those who generally share my political dispositions, but government exists to perform certain vital functions and doing so requires revenue and, thus, taxes.

Everyone has a view of what the budget priorities ought to be and whether some programs are beyond the scope of what our state government is required to do and accordingly should be eliminated. People of good will are going to differ on these matters, and my inclination has always been to cut my fellow conservative some slack on the details. The one thing, however, that has always stuck in my throat is the devotion of the Mandarins to Crony Capitalism. They are incorrigible, and even such common-sense fiscal conservatives (Mike Pence) once in office fall victim to the lure of picking winners and paying off special interests. It is one thing to pay your fair share of taxes; it something else entirely to have those taxes transferred into the pockets of Mel Simon, Jim Irsay and every corporate supplicant that hires a wired lobbyist.

"The idea that people riding bikes don’t pay for the roads is pervasive, and completely untrue."

Because Easter is the perfect sort of day for myth-busting.

The Free Rider Myth – Who Really Pays for the Roads?, by Elly Blue (Momentum Mag)

... The idea that roads are funded by user fees paid by people who drive is one of the great myths that buttresses our entire way of life. While the veneer on that myth has been crumbling for some time, we have only recently been forced to begin to look hard at it. And the difference between riding a bicycle and driving a car is surprisingly vast – but not in the way most of us imagine.

What if I told you that by driving a car you become a freeloader, a drain on the economy? That people who bicycle instead are subsidizing a road system that they are largely not welcome on? In order to break even on the cost of roads and pay for every driver who uses them each year, we would need 54% of commuters using a bicycle as their sole means of transportation.

"Highway engineers dominated the decision-making. They were trained to design without much consideration for how a highway might impact urban fabric."

If we retained the public transportation infrastructure we possessed 100 years ago, Bulldog fans could have taken the train to Indianapolis and back for last night's championship game.

This article makes at least two points that we should never tire of emphasizing.

First, that "gas taxes have never fully paid for highways," even though we insist on believing it's true.

Second, "An unmistakable part of the equation was the federally supported program of 'urban renewal,' in which lower-income urban communities — mostly African-American — were targeted for removal."

That's history, folks.

Highways gutted American cities. So why did they build them? by Joseph Stromberg (Vox)

... So why did cities help build the expressways that would so profoundly decimate them? The answer involves a mix of self-interested industry groups, design choices made by people far away, a lack of municipal foresight, and outright institutional racism.

RCI, River Ridge, one-way streets and a gas tax too low.

Last night, I finally got around to surveying the Regional Cities Initiative, and found it profoundly auto-centric -- no surprises there.

ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL EDITION: When it comes to the RCI, can the RDA opt out of the RFRA?

The usual economic development suspects see $250 million in River Ridge investment as a goal worth surrendering local autonomy in multiple counties to attain. I'm seeing several thousand cars with one occupant each trying to make their way through densely populated urban areas lying between them and their destination, thus increasing the value extractors' pressure to preserve one-way street networks as de facto interstates, thereby maintaining the degradation of our cities.

But worse of all, I see the usual economic development suspects forever ignoring the realities of the preceding paragraph, because it's all about them and their world view, and the remainder of us be damned.

That's why I'm running for mayor. Can we at least begin a rational discussion which acknowledges more than one side?

By the way, Americans pay too little in gas tax.

Even Doubled, America's Gas Tax Would Be Low by World Standards ... And yet opposition to raising it remains fixed and fierce, by Eric Jaffe (City Lab)

The federal gas tax that pays for America’s highways hasn’t been raised in decades, but that doesn’t stop some determined lawmakers from trying. The latest effort comes via Senator Tom Carper of Delaware, who has introduced a plan to raise the tax four cents a year for four years then index it to inflation so it remains effective over time. The move would ultimately bring the fuel tax to 34 cents a gallon—nearly double the existing rate of 18.4 cents.

That might seem like a big bump, but even a gas tax twice as high the current one would be incredibly low by global standards.

"Debunking the Myth That Only Drivers Pay for Roads."

The author writes, "The point is that America is an increasingly (and, now, majority) multimodal place, with a transportation network that offers personal options and collective benefits."

Has the point been grasped hereabouts?

Debunking the Myth That Only Drivers Pay for Roads, by Eric Jaffe (City Lab)

The use of general taxpayer money to construct and repair roads is enough on its own to shatter the concept that drivers pay their own way. But there's lots more to the problem—starting with the enormous social costs of driving. Those are the costs that society as a whole pays for car-reliance: the environmental impact of pollution, the health impact of accidents, and the economic impact of productivity lost to traffic, among them. These have been estimated at $3.3 trillion a year ...

... When you tally all these hidden costs together, alongside the assists that already occur for road construction and maintenance, the average household pays between $1,105 and $1,848 a year in what the report calls "uncompensated damage costs to support motor vehicle use in the United States." Again: whether they drive a lot or hardly at all.