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Tolls 'could pay for new roads'...
Comments
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So we only spend 12% of income from road related tax actually on roads?
If we don't spend what we bring in on roads currently, then nothing the Government does will address this problem unless this figure increases??? Surely this is the problem then, or am I missing something?
Yes/no/sort of. I've never seen any good published numbers & typically organisations like the drivers alliance tend to exclude all the other costs of roads eg:
Emergency services
NHS costs
Pollution
Land value of the road network
Loss of income whilst people are hospitilised
etc
and also, just to be fair, tend to ignore the benifits to the economy of the road network
propabaly because its a very tricky calculation based on a lot of, arguable, assumptions0 -
Utterly bonkers. Anyone who believes a government and its civil servants can be trusted to wisely spend 45 per cent of the country's GDP cannot have been paying attention to the behemoth of waste, corruption and inefficiency that has characterised government spending since the war.
Reading this prescription is like reading the words of a mediaeval doctor who, close to killing the patient with a quack remedy, proclaims "this isn't working! We must do more of t!"
So you would cut public spending and taxation to what percentage of GDP?
Maybe 30%, and watch the economic car crash that ensues? 25% maybe?
In the real world Gideon and his pals can't find a way to reduce public expenditure down to even the 39% by 2015 that they promised to do. In fact, if it weren't for a few neat accounting tricks they would have actually increased it.
Remember too that government spending actually accounts for a significant portion of GDP. How many private businesses would find that their business models no longer worked without government contracts, or government subsidising their pitiful wages?"When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty." - Thomas Jefferson0 -
The answer simple. The man or woman who earned it. The further away from that person, the worse the way it is spent is likely to be.
Doesn't mean we get value for money."If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....
"big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham0 -
Kennyboy66 wrote: »Significantly less people use the M6 toll road now than in 2006
Peaked at 54k users a day.
In 2011 it was 42k per day.
.
I think that there are less motorists on the roads now maybe because of the high price of fuel since 2006. Merely using the roads less for their pleasure and that would effect other outlets that they may have used on route, their alternative would be the highly conjested motorways.0 -
MacMickster wrote: »
Remember too that government spending actually accounts for a significant portion of GDP. How many private businesses would find that their business models no longer worked without government contracts, or government subsidising their pitiful wages?
As has been said on this forum many times, that is a measure of the inadequacy of GDP as a useful measurement.
Government is too big, too inefficient and too corrupt to be spending anything like the 45 per cent you advocate.0 -
As has been said on this forum many times, that is a measure of the inadequacy of GDP as a useful measurement.
Government is too big, too inefficient and too corrupt to be spending anything like the 45 per cent you advocate.
You won't get anywhere with this tack I'm afraid. Those who advocate 45%, or whatever, as the "right" level of public spending are too blinkered and ignorant to realise that no set percentage means anything. It's how it's spent, on what, how efficiently, and what value for money is delivered that matters. Having said that, government's track record on effective use of public money is so abject that a reduction from whatever the current level is can be advocated on those grounds alone. But the "big government for it's own sake" merchants are frankly just thick, tub-thumping lefties.No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions. He had money as well.
The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.
Margaret Thatcher0 -
As has been said on this forum many times, that is a measure of the inadequacy of GDP as a useful measurement.
Government is too big, too inefficient and too corrupt to be spending anything like the 45 per cent you advocate.
And the private sector is squeaky clean, judicious and honest always making sure we get the very best deal? Looking out for all with fair priced products and services to meet every ones needs, honouring their obligations to use of their own free will?
No financial irregularities, no trying to make a fast buck and pass you off with a lemon?
We can leave it to the individual to choose but 1.) they won't look after themselves, in the majority of cases. 2.) The majority couldn't afford to protect themselves adequately against all eventualities.3.) What happens to those that simply aren't covered through some gap in the system?"If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....
"big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham0 -
What happens when we reach a few years down the line and the private sector run some key road routes in the congested and profitable parts of the country?
Of course, they will have a gameplan : first achieve a level of dependence; then ramp up the prices. They are unlikely to repeat the commercial failings of the M6 toll. Lessons will have been learnt.0 -
What happens when we reach a few years down the line and the private sector run some key road routes in the congested and profitable parts of the country?
Of course, they will have a gameplan : first achieve a level of dependence; then ramp up the prices. They are unlikely to repeat the commercial failings of the M6 toll. Lessons will have been learnt.
For the record, I am wholly opposed to private road systems. Monopolies have no place in capitalism - they corrupt private enterprise as surely as they do government..0 -
grizzly1911 wrote: »And the private sector is squeaky clean, judicious and honest always making sure we get the very best deal? Looking out for all with fair priced products and services to meet every ones needs, honouring their obligations to use of their own free will?
No financial irregularities, no trying to make a fast buck and pass you off with a lemon?
Did I suggest that private enterprise is perfect? No. It is,. however, more efficient. If regulators fail in their duties to control monopolies and near-monopolies (a hallmark of regulation since Major) then that is a political failure.grizzly1911 wrote: »We can leave it to the individual to choose but 1.) they won't look after themselves, in the majority of cases. 2.) The majority couldn't afford to protect themselves adequately against all eventualities.3.) What happens to those that simply aren't covered through some gap in the system?
You will soon be finding out..The post-war cradle to grave medical system and over-generous pensions are collapsing under the weight of costs, expectations and demographics. Whatever the Left wishes were true, reality is ganging-up against it.
Ironically, your last sentence holds the key. The state system will have to revert to.its role as a last chance for those unable to fend for themselves. The rest of us will have to realise there is no money tree and that we have to look after ourselves and our own.0
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