From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Cost of public vs. private transportation
Date: 24 Jul 92 08:26:56 GMT
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <1992Jul23.000116.4102@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
>In article <JMC.92Jul22091522@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
>>The Interstate system is financed by the gasoline tax, more than 100
>>percent, I believe.  In fact the lawyers want to tap the gasoline
>>tax to finance their public transit boondoggles.
>
>	If one does some VERY clever accounting, then just MAYBE. But
>total costs are:
>
>	1979 US government agencies on highways:
>
>	$71.2 billion total
>
>which breaks down to
>
>	$44.3 billion in "user fees"
>
>and
>
>	$26.9 billion in subsidies.
>
>The "user fees" include vehicle registration fees, fuel taxes, and
>tolls.
>
>The subsidies are all sums whose sources are something other than user
>fees -- income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, bond-issue
>proceeds, etc.
>
>	Thus, highways are 38% subsidized.

Something's not right here. According to Van Nostrand's Scientific
Encyclopedia, per capita gasoline consumption was 400 gallons per
year in 1970. I don't think that has declined much. So 400*$.15*250e6=
$15 billion a year in Federal fuel tax on autos. Trucks use about 100 
gallons of diesel a day and there is an additional $.10 per gallon Federal 
tax on diesel above the ordinary gasoline tax for a total Federal tax of
$.25 a gallon. There are about 5 million trucks in the US. So 100*250*$.25*
5e6=$31.25 billion dollars. That gives a grand total of *Federal* fuel tax
collections of $46.25 billion a year. Now States also have fuel taxes. Georgia
has one of the lowest in the nation at $.10 a gallon and no surcharge for
diesel. Using that low figure nationally, we get an additional $22.5 billion
dollars to the States. That gives us a total fuel tax of $68.75 billion 
dollars. In addition, in Georgia, a registration fee is charged on vehicles 
based on their value, an ad valorum tax. In my county, that's 11 mills, 
costing me an additional $165 a year. Multiply that by the number of vehicles
nationally, about 200 million, and you have another $33 billion dollars.
Trucks are valued much higher of course, the typical tractor runs $100,000
these days. So that yields another $5.5 billion dollars. We're up to
$107.2 billion dollars now. Now States also collect a nasty item called
sales tax. In this county it's 5%. Add that to the price of gasoline and
diesel for a national total of another $11.25 billion collected on fuel
for a grandest total of $118.45 billion dollars. But wait, there's more.
That sales tax is collected on vehicle sales too. At a national average
price of $14,000 for a new car that's $700 each or $140 billion dollars.
Now the survey shows that the average owner keeps his car for 8 years so
we'll divide the $140 billion by 8 to get a yearly collection of $17.5
billion dollars. Now trucks cost $100,000 or a sales tax of $5,000 each
and their operating lifetime is on average 12 years so we have about
$2.1 billion a year from the truckers. That gives a new total of $138.05
billion a year in government revenue from road vehicles. That more than
covers a $71.2 billion expenditure for highways which is why they raid 
the funds for mass transit subsidies. We haven't even mentioned tolls
or special wheel taxes imposed on interstate trucks and local commuters.
  

Gary
Newsgroups: sci.environment