Quote:
... you would have seen that according to the DOT (the federal agency who doles out the money), taxes levied on drivers generate more money than is spent.
Sorry if that bursts your bubble, but facts is facts.
I actually know where that came from, and it is very misleading. First off it's from 2004 using older data. And in that case, of course the subsidy per 1000 passenger miles is less, because there are millions of drivers driving millions of miles and only a small fraction of that travels by train. This is because there are so few passenger trains now. Originally Posted by FlyJSH
Had you read my other quote....... you would have seen that according to the DOT (the federal agency who doles out the money), taxes levied on drivers generate more money than is spent.
Sorry if that bursts your bubble, but facts is facts.
I'll refer you to the actual USDOT's website where it charts out the Highway Trust Fund over the last few years. You can see that in 2008, Congress had to bail out the HTF with $8 billion from the general tax fund. In 2009, you have $7 billion, and in 2010, $14.5 billion. So the notion that your federal gas tax (about 18 cents per gallon) pays for all highways and then some is completely false.
Here's another report from the US PIRG, saying that collectively since 1947, we've spent another $600 billion (2005 dollars) more than what was taken in just on highways.
I'm trying to find it, but the US DOT has also stated that the gas taxes and other vehicle fees only pay for about half of what is actually spent on roads. Amtrak's farebox recovery on a whole pays more like 60-70% on average of the costs of running the trains.