Quote:
Originally Posted by RIJIMMY
Clogston, how about eliminating the pensions for state workers? Most public companies have. Right there , you'd save enough to fund the improvements.
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your right about that, there is money to be saved there. problem is, if you cut the pensions of state transportation officials, you'll have to raise their salaries or they will just leave and work in the private sector. at least for engineers, state employees are underpaid in terms of annual salary. their other "perks" like pension, more vacation time, more holidays, etc. make up for that fact. last time i was looking around, private jobs were more than 10% higher. they need to find a balance. I don't know where that balance is and what will end up costing the state more in the long run.
the unions for state workers are another issue. some laborers are making obscene salaries just because they have been at (name your state transportation agency) for X years.
as far as people who don't commute into boston not wanting to pay for it, i think you just need to take a more "global" (or statewide) view. the state infrastructure on the whole is %$%$%$%$ed, not just in boston. and the state manages almost all roads and bridges in the state. the money raised from a gas tax will essentially get distributed proportionally to where/who the money comes from because the state's infrastructure is distributed proportionally to the commuting population. essentially, its all one fund. for example, when all those piece of crap bridges in groveland and haverhill spanning the merrimack get repaired/replaced/inspected, the money will come from the statewide transportation budget, not a collection of people in those towns.
there are lots of areas of state government that need to be made more efficient (i'm certainly not arguing that). I just feel that if the state needs money to fund infrastructure repairs and can provide backup to the value that they want to tax, somebody needs to pay for those repairs, that a gas tax IMO is a fair way to distribute the burden.