Implicit in many of the FSP proposals is the ability to tell the Federal gov't to keep its federal highway funding, thank you very much, and all of the strings that are attached to it. I applaud this proposal, and look forward to the erasure of the end run around the IXth and Xth Constitutional Amendments.
At the same time, it's important to acknowledge the reality that each of the candidate Free States contains hundreds or even thousands of miles of Federal highways. The specter of weeds growing in the roadways and frost heaves finishing off the suspension of your neighbor's new Lexus would dramatically undermine our case that Federal money comes at too dear a price. Since we're unlikely to immediately reach the "sell the roads and legalize crack" stage of achieving a libertarian utopia immediately, there will be a period in which we are obliged to come up with a means of maintaining the roads in our new home state.
Given all of this, it seems to me that one of the data points we should be mindful of as we make our selection of a Free State is what size of road-maintenance obligation we're undertaking. Drawn from the DOT's Federal Highway Administration Web site, here are the mileages of "National Highway System" roads contained in each of the Free State candidates:
State Total NHS MileageAlaska | 2,119 |
Delaware | 325 |
Idaho | 2,380 |
Maine | 1,283 |
Montana | 3,892 |
New Hampshire | 810 |
North Dakota | 2,750 |
South Dakota | 2,943 |
Vermont | 718 |
Wyoming | 2,907 |
The 2001 GAO Federal Highway Funding Report lists the following Federal highway funding levels, averaged for for the five fiscal years 1996-2000 (to try to minimize the impact to this analysis of extraordinary funding) in our candidate states:
State Average Federal Funding, FYs 1996-2000, $,000,000Alaska | 239.9 |
Delaware | 100.4 |
Idaho | 155.9 |
Maine | 126.5 |
Montana | 198.1 |
New Hampshire | 117.5 |
North Dakota | 151.7 |
South Dakota | 165.7 |
Vermont | 98.8 |
Wyoming | 164.9 |
Note that the Federal funding levels bear little relation to the mileages listed in the first table. This is due to a Byzantine set of funding formulae hammered out in the course of Congressional negotiations. They reflect various rules that are designed to ensure that relatively wealthier states do not wind up excessively subsidizing their less-affluent brethren, as well as pork barrel priorities and other backroom deals.
These funds are earmarked for a variety of purposes, including basic road maintenance, new construction, bridge maintenance and replacement and so on. If we stipulate that these activities are by and large necessary (a detailed analysis of the spending may be in order to determine the validity of this stipulation), then we should look at what the per-capita cost would be in each of the Free State candidates to do a straight replacement of these funding levels:
State Average Federal Funding, FYs 2000-1996, $ per capitaAlaska | 382.63 |
Delaware | 150.68 |
Idaho | 120.45 |
Maine | 99.24 |
Montana | 219.60 |
New Hampshire | 95.10 |
North Dakota | 236.22 |
South Dakota | 219.49 |
Vermont | 162.31 |
Wyoming | 333.99 |
The first observation that springs to mind is just how cheaply the Federal gov't purchases our compliance with its multitude of minute regulations and meddlings that are tied to highway funding! Looking at the numbers, a few things jump out. The best-funded three states - Alaska, Wyoming and North Dakota - have stunningly high levels of funding (averaging more than 3 times as great) when compared to the three lowball states - New Hampshire, Maine and Idaho.
Some of this is not surprising -- road building and maintenance are complicated tremendously by permafrost and other extreme conditions that obtain across Alaska. (A powerful Senate delegation doesn't hurt, either!). New Hampshire's road departments are famous for its frugality (anecdotes about the sale of roadkill pelts to fund operations come to mind).
The picture becomes even more interesting when you examine the taxation side of the Federal highway funding scheme. Highway funding is generally drawn from the "Federal Highway Trust Fund," which comes from Federal taxes related to highway usage (primarily, Federal motor fuels taxes). Following is the average of FHTF payments from the Free State candidates for fiscal years 1996-2000 (drawn from "Table FE-221" documents on the DOT Web site):
State Average FHTF Payments, FYs 1996-2000, $,000,000Alaska | 54.4 |
Delaware | 71.7 |
Idaho | 149.3 |
Maine | 137.5 |
Montana | 120.8 |
New Hampshire | 116.5 |
North Dakota | 89.0 |
South Dakota | 89.2 |
Vermont | 68.4 |
Wyoming | 130.3 |
While it's highly improbable that the Free State could easily persuade the Federal gov't to cease collecting these payments, it is exceptionally interesting to examine the per capita Federal highway funding numbers net of these payments:
State Average Net Federal Funding, FYs 2000-1996, $ per capitaAlaska | 295.89 |
Delaware | 43.07 |
Idaho | 5.03 |
Maine | (8.59) |
Montana | 85.68 |
New Hampshire | 0.80 |
North Dakota | 97.57 |
South Dakota | 101.38 |
Vermont | 49.99 |
Wyoming | 70.02 |
Maine is a net donor state, and New Hampshire and Idaho receive almost negligible per capita Federal subsidies when you consider the full funding picture. Alaska's losses when the Free State turns away Federal highway funding are the most profound, even when the states' contributions to the FHTF are taken into consideration, and the Dakotas also both fare relatively poorly in this analysis.
If nothing else, these figures may prove useful in the fight to persuade the Free State's overall population that the end of Federal highway funding is not the end of the world, regardless of which state is finally chosen. Being able to point out to a native Mainer that she pays almost $9 a year for the privilege of having her state's Constitutional rights trampled on would have to be strong point in that discussion!
However, when examined from the point of view of making a selection for our Free State vote, the most important data to consider is that in the third table above -- the per-capita funds that we will have to replace (or cut, to the highly visible detriment of our roads). Turning away Federal highway funds in a Free State of Alaska would mean shouldering a substantial burden; Wyoming is barely better. Only Idaho among the western candidates is even comparable to the eastern choices.
Certainly, this should not be the conclusive factor when we make our final choices, but it should be an important one, given how central to our overall strategy the tactical treatment of Federal highway funds is. In order to ensure the eventual success of the Free State Project, this is one criterion which must be kept in mind.
If you would like links to my original sources for this analysis, or get a copy of the spreadsheet that I used to crunch the numbers, please drop me a line.