Says who? Historically the poverty line established a line between "you can pay for necessities" and "you cant".

So if cars are .4 and trucks are 15 how do we know cars are subsidizing trucks?

I don't know if you can merely encourage train travel. I think you probably need to discourage road travel.

Why would we take the most extreme examples, instead of averages? The most extreme examples compare a pickup truck in a very expensive state with a semi truck in the cheapest state. On average you're looking at about 9 cents vs 1.5.

Tolls are not insignificant to truckers, they are far more likely than cars to…

The right off isn't relevant as you can write off the expense of the vehicle as well. That being said, our three trucks are all running various Screaming Jimmys. Two inline sixes rebuilt and tuned to 350 hp. One is an original V8, 318 hp. I'd say it averages 3mph @80,000 lbs.

Roads are NOT subsidized by non-truck drivers. Roads are subsidized by taxpayers generally. The highway trust fund and most local funding mechanisms are totally broken. Truckers pay between five and fifteen cents per mile in taxes. Cars pay between .6 and 4 cents. They're allowed to drive on less than half of all…

Why exactly do you think you pay your fair share of road maintenance and truckers don't?

By equity, I meant between homeowners. Kind of like fairness. That could be a confusing term in this context.

I just mean as a useful metric for determining equity and fairness to compare rates across jurisdictions. Honestly I don’t believe in property tax, as a form of taxation at all. I think it is particularly silly in NYS as the last thing you want a regressive tax to do is to fund progressive programs. You’re just…

Can I have more bitters?

I agree with you entirely. But is there actually good information about property tax rates, other than percentages? Typically rural NY property taxes are considered extremely high and are often compared to national property taxes. What we would need is the dollar amount of the tax as a percentage of income, if you…

So are the tax rates, in percentage terms on Long Island higher than 2.1% - 3.5%? The community I live in simply does not have pockets of wealth. However, other towns certainly do. In percentage terms they end up with lower effective tax rates. The families in sought after homes, though, are paying $20,000 a year in…

I would say, Gator, Antelope, Black Bear, Squirrel and just about every single part of a cow you could imagine. I grew up on a dairy farm and my grandmother was all about not wasting heart, liver, tongue etc. She used to make her own lunch meat. I have no idea what she put in that meat grinder, but whatever it was it…

Hmmm. Taxes are extremely high in percentage terms upstate, much higher than Long Island or NYC. Though I'm guessing our perspectives differ only because our definition of "upstate" is different. I would imagine the downstate "suburbs" have the wealth to run pretty smoothly.

No it isn't. A dollar of my student loan debt only results in fifty cents of interest after 20 years. There is no way I would pay that off and risk some financial crisis. If I have a financial crisis I can't call up Sallie Mae and ask for my early payments back. Instead, I end up in credit card debt and get hit…

whoops.

If this concerns you, you should probably also stop eating. http://www.fda.gov/Food/Foodborne…

I've consumed from 12 of those breweries. I could comment intelligently on at least half. To the bar!

NASA was king of pork. I don't see a major difference. Pork can be effective or it can be ineffective. The politics do not define success or failure.

Funny you don't see the importance government plays in developing technology having worked for NASA. That's a strange perspective.

It is for the development of advanced technologies and vehicle parts. The goal is pretty clear.