That means “No free lunch” in Latin. In accordance with that principle, we learn that (a) our Interstate Highways — a marvelous achievement of our era — are falling into disrepair, but (b) nobody wants to pay the cost of repair and maintenance . Ron Nixon, Agreement on Interstate Repair Needs, but Not on How to Pay for Them, N.Y. Times, April4, 2014, at p. A13.
The simplest and fairest solution would seem to be the imposition of tolls payable by Interstate users, which would place the burden on the recipients of the benefit, but — guess what? — the folks who make heavy use of those freeways are fighting this proposal tooth and nail, and demand that somebody else do the paying, and do so by methods that are invisible — not by forking over money to a highway toll collector, but some other way.
The surprising part is that the opposition includes not just highway users like trucking companies, but aso the likes of McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts who argue that if — Heaven forfend! — members of the travelling public have to get off the tollway, get their vittles, and then get back on, they’ll avoid interstates instead, and the fast food business will go to hell in a hand basket. We have trouble accepting that because there are states with toll highways, and last time we looked people were using them and duly tossing their money into the toll collectors’ baskets. But, hey man, what do we know? Our inquiry is: where is it written that each of us has an inalienable right to a nonstop trip to wherever we are going, compleat with Big Macs on the way, without paying the full cost of the highways we travel on?
True, all motorists pay taxes, but not all of them are freeway users. So if those who are, are called upon to throw some money into the toll collectors’ basket, that would seem only fair since they are the ones receiving a special benefit of speedy, uninterrupted travel. If doing so isn’t worth is, that means that these folks don’t think the freeways are worth their true cost. If so, it’s time for the responsible government officials to do their job, confront the would-be public free lunch consumers, and remind them that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
If you won’t do that, you run the hazard that — as Margaret Thatcher put it — sooner or later you run out of other people’s money, and in this case, you wind up with lousy, unsafe roads.