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Highway Robbery – Using Our Gasoline Taxes for “Smart Growth” Propaganda

By Theresa Fritz Camoriano

“There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.”
-- Robert Heinlein

Have you heard the ads that are being run by the Kentucky Dept. of Transportation and funded by your federal highway tax dollars?  They are propaganda for the “smart growth” agenda.  In case you don’t already know what the “smart growth” agenda is, it is an agenda to put greater government controls on land use in order to prevent or greatly limit development outside of urban areas.

These ads tell us that it is smart to build in urban areas, where the infrastructure has already been built, because it does not require the construction of additional infrastructure.  They say that building in urban areas is “smart”, because it will save money. 

I object to these ads for three reasons:

1.       Our federal gasoline tax dollars are supposed to be a user fee, to be used to build highways and bridges – not to be used for propaganda to “educate” us and promote somebody’s agenda.  If the federal government has more money than it needs for roads, then it should reduce the gasoline tax.  It should not be forcing us to support its propaganda.

2.       These ads are giving us half-truths, not the whole story.  While so-called “smart growth” reduces the need for construction of additional infrastructure, it also increases housing costs, increases traffic congestion, and increases air pollution.  So, when all the costs are taken together, so-called “smart growth” is not so smart after all.

3.       The “smart growth” agenda includes the use of laws and regulations to prevent the development of rural land, which effectively steals property rights and value from rural property owners.  It is not just a matter of suggesting that you would be better off building in an urban area; it is a matter of using laws to prevent you from building outside of the urban area.  As long as property owners are willing to pay for the cost of developing their property, including the cost of water lines and sewers, they should be free to do so.  People know what they want, and they do not need to be manipulated, controlled, and plundered by central planners who think they are smarter than everyone else.  The real smart choice would be to treat individual property owners and consumers with respect – not to treat them as pawns on the chess boards of the elitist planners.

Instead of using our gasoline taxes to view porn on the state’s computers, or to spread propaganda, KY Dept. of Transportation employees should build and repair roads based on usage and demand, and they should do the work efficiently and effectively, because  States Must Attend to Road Transportation!  Now that would be really “SMART!”

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