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[quote user="jeaton"] FMOnce again we see that you state that the facts are wrong in order to avoid upsetting your view of the world.  You really ought to get yourself a time slot on the local AM radio station.  With a sure supply of ditto heads, I am sure you would find it quite rewarding.Tax Revenue going into the Inland Waterways Trust Fund for the 12 months ending November,2006 were $80.8 million and the trust fund balance was $249 million.  Use the entire balance of $249 million instead of the $177 million that the Corps plans to use and you still see a "slight" shortfall.If you want to argue that the Corps maintains a 12 foot navigation channel so some fisherman can run his 250 horsepower bass boat to a good spot, be my guest.I suppose I could be wrong, but I think that the Corps would put the Katrina related expense into the Category of Flood/Storm Damage Reduction for which they have separate scheduled $1.291 billion.  Further, the regional breakdowns only show about $260 million going for Navagation and Flood Control for the lower portion of the Mississippi that includes New Orleans. And speaking of mincing words, perhaps you can dig up a quote from the AAR stating that the railroads are a "purely private" enterprise.  I doubt that there are many barge lines that will call themselves anything but "private businesses" any more than any other kind of business that has received grants, loans or services in kind from the government.Finally, I am not going to get into your diversion about who gets what and for what and the relative merits.  Frankly, it does not bother me one bit that large sums of money go to maintain waterways and facilities around the country, as I believe that it is of benefit to the general economic well being.  My point is that your contention that the barge lines fully pay for the benefits they recieve from the govern is total BS.[/quote]You're certainly entitled to your view, but you have to obfuscate the facts to arrive at your conclusions.  Not a problem, since you seem to have no problem with a general maintenance of the nation's transportation infrastructure.I have pointed out the grey area of who should pay for what when a prior usage factor is disrupted by development.  It's too bad we don't have a situation where a free flowing river is maintained soley for barge movement, e.g. no dams, no locks, no private boaters, no environmental *mitigation*.  We do have some natural harbors and free flowing rivers being dredged for ships but not barging.May I also point out that the Corps budget is like that of any other government entity, where funds from one area may be transferred to another area to keep things prioritized.  Historically, the Waterways and Harbor funds have been raided like Social Security to minimize general budget growth, both externally and internally.  Therefore, taking this post-Katrina spending period out of context is a bit disingenuous for analysis sake.And I will state it clearly - barge lines not only fully pay there own way year in and year out, they pay the way of non-commercial users as well.  You can argue that point if you discount prior usage, selected municiple port development, et al, but if you do so you are on a slippery slope.BTW - did you come up with those figures yet for total rail related tax expenditures?
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