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bagels

I don't know why the author only does an analysis of just property taxes contributing to road maintenance.

Most people in the US are contributing additional taxes in the form of:

* Gasoline taxes

* State and local sales taxes

* State and federal income taxes

Those taxes are available to build and maintain infrastructure as well. Whether they are [used for that purpose] or not is a different question.

I know that I am contributing more than enough taxes to maintain the small patch of road in front of where I live by the author's cost analysis.

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It's mentioned in the article that this is about local, city-maintained streets. Unless you live directly on a state or federal highway, those gas taxes, state sales taxes, and income taxes do not go towards the street you live one.

Local sales taxes may, and the author includes these in the diagram of the city budget. Your largest contribution to the maintenance of city infrastructure is in property taxes, either directly or through rent. It's also worth noting that the article only accounts for road surface maintenance. Adding in sewage and water expenses would likely not be favorable.

A Google search for "federal street construction grant" indicates otherwise. There's lots of results discussing such grants.

Gas taxes go to federal, state, and local (county level).

I would assume that a lot of people on HN pay more state income & sales taxes than property taxes through rent.

"this is about local, city-maintained streets. Unless you live directly on a state or federal highway, those gas taxes, state sales taxes, and income taxes do not go towards the street you live one."

This statement in the article is untruthful. The Ames budget he references explicitly lists gas tax money as going to local street maintenance.

The author excluded roads financed by gasoline tax from the analysis. I don't remember reading about sales and income taxes in the article, but perhaps those are in the same category.

My point was that it's not necessarily that there aren't enough taxes, but the problem could be misallocation on bombs and baby boomer pensions. By ignoring the majority of the taxes, this analysis is incomplete.

I don't know what other towns or states look like but from what I can see all those sources are already stretched pretty thin.

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