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Forget it….

New Jersy started constructing the Garden State Parkway in the 1950's with State Highway Construction bonds that the .25 cent tolls were supposed to pay off as their expiration dates occurred !

The Parkway would then be FREE !

Instead the Politicians kept widening the road and "improving" the journey !
About 25 years ago the bonds were supposed to be paid off !
All the various projects have just moved the stop & go congestion up and down a few miles !......and.........RAISED the toll charges collected per mile !
As most states found, the costs of maintaining and improving those soon-to-be paid off toll roads were real high numbers, too. They figured it was better to keep charging tolls than ask the taxpayers to take on that chore. I think Kentucky converted some toll highways to free... to their credit.

West Virginia is the state that pulled a fast one on everybody. When the WV Turnpike was widened in the 70s/80s into a real highway (instead of the two lane death trap it was), they asked the Federal government to pay much of cost, which was huge. The problem is the Feds don't/won't pay for improvements to toll highways. So WV turned the Turnpike into a "free" highway except for three small stretches that were to remain a toll road. Of course those three small sections didn't have an alternate route through the mountains. Taxpayers and drivers collectively fleeced.

Forget it….

New Jersy started constructing the Garden State Parkway in the 1950's with State Highway Construction bonds that the .25 cent tolls were supposed to pay off as their expiration dates occurred !

The Parkway would then be FREE !

Instead the Politicians kept widening the road and "improving" the journey !
About 25 years ago the bonds were supposed to be paid off !
All the various projects have just moved the stop & go congestion up and down a few miles !......and.........RAISED the toll charges collected per mile !
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Forget it….

Biden had at least 2 large "infrastructure" spending bills. Federal math on total cost is difficult because they added in tax increases on things like stock buybacks, but generally 2 trillion is a good number for the spending cost if you include the Chips act, which was an added $300 billion for chip manufacturing subsidies.

Anyway, here is an interactive map showing local projects authorized by the "Bipartisan" Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. Anyone who passed Econ 101 knows that there are 2 ways to stimulate an economy aside from taxes: more federal spending and lowering interest rates. Biden put alot of cocaine into stimulus and when it ends there will be withdrawal pains. Trump inherited a fixer upper.

Just put in your zip code and you can click on dots for each project near you: how much it is costing and a short description of what it is for. This spending is probably over 5 years or however the project lasts. No wonder we have road construction everywhere at the moment.

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