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Here is another example of why it is important to look at the big picture. Texas has thousands of Farm to Market and County Roads. Do the ranchers and farmers who use these roads pay enough in direct charges, i.e. fuel taxes, sales taxes, etc. to cover the cost of the roads?  Nope, probably not!  Do the property taxes that they pay cover the cost of the roads?  I don't know, but I suspect not! So why invest in them?  What it the benefit to society? The Farm to Market and County Roads in Texas greatly expanded the markets for the rancher's and farmer's products.  Instead of being locked into a county market, the roads have made it possible for them to sell their products in regional, national and international markets. This in turn has enabled them to garner a better return for their products. It also made it possible for them to consolidate their operations, become more efficient, and generate the large returns associated with large scale ranching and farming.  Not a good outcome for the small family farm, to be sure, but it is time to get over that fantasy as well.  Expanded markets and better returns mean higher incomes for the ranchers and farmers. Higher income means higher tax revenues, which flow into state and federal general funds, and some of these monies flow back to various road authorities, including the road authorities responsible for the Farm to Market and County Roads in Texas.   Whether Texas ranchers and farmers pay enough in state and federal, as well as property taxes, to cover the cost of the Farm to Market and County Roads is unknown.  Tracing the monies from payment to end use would be practicability impossible. But at the end of the day, Americans pay for them, and most Americans, including most farmers and ranchers, are motorists.    It is not just ranchers and farmers who have benefited from the feeder roads.  As I drove up from the Rio Grande Valley today, I passed hundreds of roadside businesses, i.e. restaurants, service stations, motels, shopping outlets, etc.  Without the roads, they would not be there.  And they pay taxes.  Heaps of them.  And some of the tax revenues generated by these businesses find their way back into the roads.
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