Sunday, April 6, 2008

Cato's great libertarian idea

I was stumbling around the shadier corridors of the internets and I stumbled upon this jarringly mindless comment from someone at the Cato Institute, the supposedly libertarian think-tank:

"Too many American cities are spending far too much money on expensive rail transit projects, which are used for only 1 to 2 percent of local travel, and far too little on highway projects which are used for 95 to 99 percent of local travel," Randal O'Toole, a senior fellow with the Cato Institute, said in an e-mail interview.

So, Cato's "libertarian" position on the matter: the government subsidized and supported roads and cars and we now have lots of roads and cars, therefore the government ought to continue to to build and maintain highway projects to maintain continuity. Wow – this could take the prize for vulgar libertarianism.

No comments: