[lzw]

This is a state that paid something close to $2B for new fancy stadiums that weren't needed, and has never met a glamor or status project that it didn't want to do. It is constantly spending money on status symbols whose real purpose is not to benefit the people, but to aggrandize the politicians who got them built.

Paved roads are really cheap, and are a tiny fraction of the expenses of the state. But they let them go to hell, even though they have plenty of money to keep them up, because people notice broken roads and you can extort more taxes from them this way.

Its the oldest trick in the book.

So, talking about paved roads as a reason to create a whole new tax and remove one of the few decent things about the washington business environment is disingenuous. I'm sure you weren't being disingenuous, but the politicians who bring it up are.

[brettmjohnson]

Paved roads in the U.S. are not really cheap. A typical 2-lane rural road is about 1.7 million dollars per mile. A suburban road is double that; 3.5 million dollars per mile.

ftp://ftp.dot.state.fl.us/LTS/CO/Estimates/CPM/summary.pdf

[bhiggins]

I don't like the government subsidizing stadiums either. At least, very recently, Seattle decided not to build a new basketball stadium and as a result the Supersonics moved to Oklahoma. I think that was the right call. I just wanted to point that out just so nobody falsely accuses you of painting with too broad a brush in the future.