Socialists at Heart? – According

Socialists at Heart? – According to an article in the Washington Post, Fluor Daniels, a large construction firm, told Virginia transportation officials that it could widen a particularly congested section of the beltway to 12 lanes using toll revenue from the new lanes instead of state money.

This sounds like the proverbial win-win situation: the state spends no money; rich people (or non-rich people in a big hurry) can buy their way into fast lanes; and everybody else experiences less congestion because the rich and fast are no longer clogging their lanes. In fact, this proposal could even be seen by uncomfortable Democrats as a tax on the rich, who would happily pay it for the additional benefit it provided, and it would have the added benefit of reducing traffic for everyone.

But not everyone thinks this way.

A year ago, Gov. Parris N. Glendening (D) stopped a state study of similar proposals for the Beltway in Maryland, saying it would be unfair to low-income residents to allow affluent drivers to buy their way out of traffic.

If this is unfair, what must the good governor think of, say, first class travel? The Concorde? Expensive houses, good wine, luxury cars, fine clothes, etc., being limited to rich people? In fact, why not just get rid of rich people altogether?

But wait, hasn’t that been tried…?

Say What?