I know the "corporations are not people" thing gets people riled up, but let's just think this through logically.

So, if I am an independent contractor making widgets, and then I decide to incorporate to limit liability but am the sole owner and employee, and then I decide to outsource my accounting to an external one-person company, and then I hire the accountant directly as 1099 rather than being a customer, and then I hire her as W-2 employee... At what point do I stop being a person and give up my religious rights?

> This doesn't deny corporations from running ads, they just have to do it on their own, and out in the open where everyone can see who they are telling people to vote for. They have to buy their own ads to tell people to vote for Harry Reid or Mitch McConnell.

Congratulations! "Your" plan is already the law of the land.

Certainly not all potential alternatives would be worse, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find a privately developed road system anywhere in the world that really matches the publicly built systems.

Unfortunately that point is irrelevant. The only thing that is relevant is looking at the total cost to society for the Interstate system (including opportunity costs) and the total benefit to society for the Interstate system... and only then comparing it to alternatives.

The problem with Interstate fans is that they have zero imagination. They are unable to consider how our history would be different without the Interstate system. They can only take our current state and subtract the Interstates and consider how we would be worse off. Of course we would be worse off! For over 50 years, we have organized our cities, our way of business, our cultures, our markets, our car purchases, and our entire lives based on the fact that you can get from point A to point B in a car in a particular amount of time at a very low (marginal) cost.

We all laugh about the flying car idea, but one reason it's not here is that there's no need for it. We have the Interstate system and it's cheap (per mile) to drive on it (don't confuse marginal cost per mile with overall cost). But with anyone with the slightest bit of imagination and ability to think outside the box, it is pretty clear that without the Interstate system connecting the cities:
a) cities themselves would be more compact, a la Europe... bye, bye suburbs and long, environmentally-expensive commutes
b) air travel would be a much, much bigger market, and it would be mass produced similar to cars

You people are looking at the chicken and the egg and wondering how much it would suck if we didn't have the egg! It's a nonsensical comparison because you're missing a very obvious causal link.

It almost sounds like you are blaming Comcast for protecting its interests?

I love how you act like you came up with an original point, instead of an overused, irrelevant point. Do I think we would have the interstate highway system we have today? No, probably not. We would have something different.

Now I would love for you to try to tell us that that something different would be worse, better, or the same. You don't know and no one else does. You're talking about completely alternative histories here, where the country would have organized in a different way without the ability to travel on the interstates.

You assume that every single one of those alternative histories would have been worse. I say there is zero evidence supporting that and you're making an ass of yourself by repeating nonsense talking points from the big government types.

Please explain how this is relevant. Untreated fires burn down entire cities.

The goal of the chamber, which represents 3 million large and small businesses, is to fend off potential emissions regulations by undercutting the scientific consensus over climate change

If the science is so compelling, what's the problem? Oh, that's right... because the science ranks right up there with studies of narcotics when it comes to abject politicization.

I actually disagree with you. For people who watch Fox News, there is no alternative. Say what you want, but O'Reilly gets ridiculous ratings (not sure why; just stating facts). Where are they going to go now... MSNBC? CNN? Doubtful.

I wonder why no one rips on MSNBC?

Oh...

This is brilliant and I'm actually kind of disappointed in myself for not thinking of it sooner. I hope they do it. Current AdBlock users (like myself) are getting a lot of things for free that other people are paying for. That isn't fair. I don't want ads, but I am willing to support other business models, if they come about.

First, there's nothing to suggest either (a) net-neutrality will present a higher marginal cost or (b) net-neutrality will present a lower marginal cost on the same. Given this, it's logical to assume no change

Assume no change by default? By god, you are an economist!

> but the fuel savings nationally should be measurable

You know what happens when the per-mile cost of driving falls? Shockingly, people drive more miles.

Last summer when gas was $4/gal, I passed on a couple road trips.

Are you serious? How "freaked out" do you think people would be if they hadn't been saving at a rate of -0.5% (yes, negative!) prior to the recession, steadily down from ~12% in the '80s? Of course there is a large psychological effect. When you lose your job and have no savings, people would only be acting rational to freak out.

I never would have gotten involved in the program if I'd known it could have run out at any minute and endangered my finances.

Every government program has this risk. The program is utter silliness and just further encourages people to buy things they don't think are worth the price. Good riddance. I'm tired of spending taxpayer money enriching failed auto companies.