Quote Originally Posted by Snowballs
whoa! Matt, the State highway fund blah blah blah blah.
You're right that a lot of money has been pilfered from the state highway fund, but that doesn't mean "socialism" is behind it. The Transportation budget in this state is somewhere around 14 billion. The state highway fund never had that much money, and even if they did, apparently they don't want to spend the money on roads . . . (11.6 billion - 35% of money taken in - spent on roads since 1991). So other people are paying for roads through their income tax dollars (non drivers, people who take the subway to work, people upstate whose tax dollars go to the MTA). Just as people pay for the fire department, even though they may never need it.

I don't know what your definition of "Socialism" is, but I hate to say it, the Department of Transportation is Socialistic. The government (i.e. the people) control the means of production and the allocation of resources. Your problem is that you want "socialism" in one case (Transportation), but not in other cases. I don't know how to tell you this, but tough $hit. My tax dollars go to fund wars that I don't want, military that we don't need, and "faith based initiatives" that I don't care about.

Yeah, I know that people use roads. Big revelation, that. I want more highway funding too, so we're in agreement there (I guess), but I also don't care if my tax dollars go to help a single mother, a senior citizen, or an unemployed factory worker. I don't know what your opinion is on that, but I got from the tone of your first post that this is the kind of "socialism" that you reject. All I want is consistency in arguments. I hate it when people toss around the word "Socialism" like it's the worst thing in the world. All it really means it that there's a system of the commons (roads, bridges, fire departments, public schools, unemployment benefits, etc.) that we all, collectively, pay into. If you're against "socialism", you should be for all private fire departments, all private schools, and all private highways.

If you're more reasonable, and recognize that we have a mixed public/private system, than you won't be so casual with your use of "socialism" as some kind of insult.