Caltrans Wins California Golden Fleece Award for Its $10 billion Highway Robbery

For example, the average household income for a buyer of a gas-powered Ford Fo- cus is $77,000 a year, whereas the buyer of the electric model of the Ford Focus earns an average annual income of $199,000. [...] When assets are “owned” by a government, the absence of marketability and a profit motive results in mispricing of the asset or the asset’s services, mispricing in the sense that prices do not reflect true scar- city. [...] The inability of the public to sell their “share” in government-owned assets also prevents the assets from being owned by people who best understand the industry and have the technical knowledge to operate and repair the asset. [...] Ivepar, the company that won a 30-year lease for the fifth auctioned highway, planned to invest 8 billion reais to modernize the road and double the num- ber of lanes in five years. [...] Road usage charges are the fair method to pay for roads: the most equitable pricing system for any good or service is for people to “pay for what they use.” The California legislature, recognizing problems with the state’s current approach, has approved a pilot program to explore use of a vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT) fee.