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Originally Posted by znova70
If we all did that than you guys would be the first ones to cry about the roads not being taken care of. Because no one is paying road tax on there fuel. You all use the roads dont Stay off road than you dont have to you.
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If you want to use that flawed argument, then let's take all of the interstate trucking off of the roads and put them onto railroad flatcars. You will cut the need for expediture almost in half, plus 'saving the environment' at the same time as according to the Association of American Railroads, 1 gallon of diesel will move 1 ton of freight 423 miles on the rails.
Without trucks, the interstate freeway system would not need the type of maintenance it does now. Without trucks, there would not be a need for the type of bridge construction we have now, and we wouldn't have bridges failing because of it.
Is this argument absurd? You betcha - without trucks, our economy grinds to a halt and we pay much more for food and goods. However, it isn't any more absurd than your argument is. BTW, railroads are private enterprise, they pay for their physical plant - not the government (i.e. Joe Taxpayer).
If the government is so hell bent on wanting to find alternative fuel, then it has to do its part to spur demand for such a product, or it's doomed to failure. You do that by reducing, or in some cases, eliminating a tax on a particular good, even if it's fuel. For you tree hugger types, biodiesel is 'carbon neutral' and therefore 'not the threat' to our environment as fossil fuels are. Wouldn't you like to see more of this?
