An irrelevant point. The question posed to me was “Why should Congress give this chance for graft and payoffs to favored contractors to the states?”. Now come up with a legitimate justification for Congress denying an application from Kentucky and Ohio to set up a bi-state authority.

Repeal the tolls prohibition and every blue state in the country will slap tolls on the Interstates, “for infrastructure projects only of course”

The purpose of tolls is to finance road maintenance by assessing people in their capacity as motorists using the highway rather than in their capacity as general consumers, real property holders, or earners.

A fairly straightforward scheme would be for the federal government to institute tolls on all long-haul Interstates and distribute the proceeds to a dedicated fund in each of the 50 states. The purpose of the dedicated fund would be to finance maintenance on the long-haul interstates running through the state in question. The formula of distribution would be according to the acres of macadam in each state on these Interstates. The state legislature could top off the funds in question with discretionary appropriations and / or bond issues. Maintenance on the short hauls could be financed with tolls imposed and collected by state governments.

As for paying out of general revenues, let’s see you lead the charge for higher taxes for infrastructure in Kentucky and Ohio.

I’ve never lived in either state and see no reason why their public works should be cross-subsidized by the other states. You haven’t given a reason, either. All you do is sneer.

The Bee is on a roll today, in fact, beginning with the Shaman for Speaker post.

https://babylonbee.com/news/republican-approval-ratings-at-record-high-after-bringing-congress-to-grinding-halt

https://babylonbee.com/news/house-republicans-frantically-binge-old-schoolhouse-rock-episodes-to-figure-out-what-theyre-supposed-to-be-doing

(forgot to hit publish last night, but they are still good, and some new ones today)

There it is, the hostage taking, rarely made so explicit. Vote for people who will give the Democrats what they want because if you don’t the Democrats will get what they want?

The House GOP has an absolute veto on budgets and legislation–both need both Houses of Congress to pass. This is ridiculous. If they care about conservatism they know what they can do to stop anything the Dems want to do, except treaties and Supreme Court Justices. The majority of them simply don’t and are super eager to “cut deals” that just so happen to benefit their friends, patrons and clients using our tax money.

Agreed.

My most recent post on this can be found here.

Whoever is Speaker is going to have to cut deals with Schumer and the WH. Don’t these people realize how much worse those deals will be for the right if the Speaker can’t deliver 218 votes? Are these bomb throwers going to vote for the “crap sandwiches” sure to come if Scalise negotiates them instead of McCarthy? Are they assuming that someone other than McCarthy has super powers that will make Democrats forget the leverage they have from holding the Senate, the WH, and the press?

Call me cynical, but I think many of them do realize that and would rather have a scapegoat than a better deal.

If only McCarthy had shown as much tenacity in fighting Democrats and protecting Americans in the last two years as he has in his four failed votes to be Speaker the past two days.

and

https://mobile.twitter.com/RepBobGood/status/1610758752227168256?cxt=HHwWgMDQ1aGjyNosAAAA

It’s just a matter of time until Kevin McCarthy finally realizes he doesn’t have the 218 votes and he’s not going to get 218 votes.

Do the 20 want something that McCarthy is still unwilling to give, or are the objections to McCarthy himself?

If it’s the latter, it’s pretty difficult to see this as anything other than a heckler’s veto after McCarthy won 85% of the vote for caucus leadership.