[Vision2020] Better Match Investment Timelines (was: Otter Has Plan)

[Kenneth Marcy]

On Thursday 28 February 2008 13:07, Craine Kit wrote:
> I agree with the Governor that we need to raise money to fix the  
> roads. However, I think it should be done by charging for potential  
> damage. That would be a combination of charging licence fees based on  
> the weight of the vehicle, a surcharge on the purchase of studded  
> tires, and a small increase in the gas tax.
<snip multiple old posts not needed to waste archive server space>

Yes, the State of Idaho needs more capital investment funds for 
transportation infrastructure expansion, improvement, and repair. Missing 
so far in the discussion of characteristics of funding sources acceptable 
for such purposes is a better matching of the payments for the funding of 
the capital and the timeline for the usage of the infrastructure built with 
that capital. Thus far suggestions have been of a pay-as-you-incur-expense 
nature for raising capital to build long-term infrastructure assets.

A more satisfactory matching of the timelines would come from capital raised 
from expenditures for longer-term investments and then transferred as 
capital for infrastructure investments. In other words, tax items at their 
purchase that likely will be used for a longer time, perhaps the same 
longer time that the infrastructure will be used. This helps to reduce the 
short-term regressive characteristics of using expense taxation to pay for 
capital construction.

What to tax? Well, how about building materials that will become parts of 
homes and business structures that will presumably stand for extended 
periods of time near the newer and repaired roads that service the land on 
which those buildings sit?

This policy will have the salutary effect of asking some of Idaho's newer 
residents, who presumably want to become long-term residents, to help pay 
for roads and bridges and goat trail widening to which existing longer-term 
residents have already enjoyed the pleasure of contributing. It will also 
focus tax receipts from those areas of the state that are growing more 
rapidly, and thus are more likely to need such infrastructure investments.


Ken