Universal health care should be the first priority.

THE NY TIMES reported today that AIG will need another $40B on top of the 121B already spent. Without addressing the underlying landuse issues, of failure on the outskirts of the driving economy, we are leaving this problem to fester and worsen.

Hurricane Katrina and the fires in California have created other problems with insurance companies. Florida, Louisiana were looking to join CA in providing state insurance for disasters because insurers were bailing out. The load on employers have also taxed the ability of insurance companies to provide health insurance and states are trying to grapple with this problem too.

HR 676 cost of a $60bn-$110bn plan to provide universal health insurance for Americans is insignificant relative to the broken system we have today. We should replace it and reduce out costs quickly and help employers reduce their burden. This will allow employers to use critical funds elsewhere in rescuing their business. Then the government can tackle the investment in the urban environment to reduce the need to drive with the balance of the bailout bill.

Bailing out GM and other losers of the past system without using a gas tax is just bad policy.

Failed Politics and Congestion Pricing

From Today's New York Times the numbers presented by the Deputy Transportation Commissioner show that $15/gal will get a 10% reduction in Manhattan traffic which Mayor Bloomberg intended with congestion pricing. The Port Authority estimates that there is a crossover point when the cost to transit will not be offset by the rising price.

The disadvantage of not raising gas prices with taxes is that the Saubies (Saudis and Bushes) make the money instead of society and transit. The impact is spread out instead of localized to the congestion zone according to the DTC. The advantage is the meshing with "goals of cutting traffic and as a consequence lowering pollution."

The decrease in demand for parking was double that of the decrease in bridge traffic, probably because people were trying to scrounge more, and similarly an increase in neighborhood traffic around entry points with no toll. So parking cost rises can offset a need to raise gas to $15/-

A federal policy that gives cities a roads and transit funding bonus for parking management through pricing would be immensely useful here, and CCAG should ask our representatives for this in the Green TEA. James Kunstler says that all the talk of technology and alternate fuels are delusional, and will make it that much more difficult to achieve our goal of 350 ppm of CO2, from the present of level of 384 increasing at slightly more than 1 ppm per year. The good news is that demand, 1/3rd from China, will continue to increase which means rising prices. The bad news for policy makers is that they are unprepared with the infrastructure for a transit ready society and the public distrust in them is justified.

Just going along with the ride and monkeying with the goals via hydrogen shuttles and smart corridors to barely achieve congestion management goals is not just bad policy- data shows that it will be catastrophic.