Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1925-02-21

|FFDFRAL HIGHWAY SYSTEM WILL REACH
EVERY town OF 5000 POPULATION OR MON
Better Highways Essential to Rural Education; Question
Financing Greatest Problem to be Per Cent 60
Per Cent of Well-bui Road is Permanent Investment

able to do for few key points. the
economic significance of this invest
ment is enormous.
Meaning Of the Highway to the
Town
Let us go back to the time when
delegations waited on railroad Of
tcials from towns all over the coun :
try and begged and made every sort
of concession to have a station es-
tablished in their town. Those men
knew what communication meant.
They knew it was the life blood OF
their town. They would have re-
carded a program to place a unit of
5000 on the national transportation
map as dream almost beyond i'm
agination.
| am not speaking of highways as
ccntrasted with railroads, but rather
as linked up with them. We are in
highly fortunate position in that
this country has a gridiron of rail
lines. This gridiron should be main
tanned, operated. encouraged on a
sound basis. Given this longhaul
transportation equipment. the high
way system becomes doubly SER
viceable because it means that every
community of 5000 population is link
ed not only with a motor travel sys-
TEN, but is likewise within rapid
transit reach of the long distance
railroad service.
Let any community or any indi-
vidual which does not recognize the
value of this investment build spite
fence in protest, and realize what it
means to have communication cut
I eff.
/ have stressed this point because
it brings out. perhaps. more def
| mite realization Of the part of. the
| highway in both national and local
economics. and because I am going
alton of what the motor vehicle
! should pay in the program Of raising
funds for this development.
| 1t is recognized that the motor ca,
User gets a more immediate and
more definite return from improved
| highways than any other class of the
/ community. 1t is also fact that the
| employment of motor vehicles is sc
/ general that the question of the
| source from which highway revenues
! are raised is largely academic. The
motorist and the taxpayer are to a
| large degree the same source.
Federal Motor Taxes More Than
Twice Federal Highways Outlay
The burden of federal expenditure
i for highways has not. however. fall
len on the general taxpayer at all as
yet. The late Henry c. Wallace
Secretary of Agriculture. summed UP
the situation in an address before
the Investment Bankers Associa ton
ct Washington, October 80, 1923. as
fellows:
| Excise taxes on motor vehicles
and parts collected on June 80.
1928, totaled s5S9.012.0o1. During the
same period expenditures for Federal
and Forest Road Aid, including adj
ministrative expenses, amounted to
but s264,7S2.2l6. or the equivalent of
$3.50 of the sum collected by the
Federal Government from motor
vehicle users"
The federal excise taxes on motor
vehicles, however, We're a special
wartime measure levied on this and
Gil a few other industries and in all
equity should be removed. They are
paid into the general fund. not into
the highway fund. and as the matter
stands today have far exceeded any
warrant for levying them on the
basis of road appropriations.