Editorial: Now would be a good time to raise Gas Taxes
Commentary, September 1st, 2007
By Noel T. Braymer
The recent collapse of the I-35W Freeway Bridge in Minneapolis highlights a problem that has been growing for years: the deferred maintenance of much of America’s infrastructure. There is an old saying in Economics: “There is no such thing as a free lunch“. The “free lunch” referred to was the practise in the past of Bars serving a “free lunch” with the purchase of a beer. The purchase of the beer paid for the “free lunch” and besides the lunch was usually made up of salty foods which tended to make the bar patron thirsty for what else; more beer. The point is one way or the other you or someone pays for what you get. Any money “saved” putting off work on the I-35W Bridge was more than lost when the bridge collapsed. To quote another old saying “a stitch in time save nine.”