Institutional collapse.

What is approaching is this. At time point A, you can spend more and pay less by borrowing (or borrowing off the books by deferring infrastructure maintenance and retirement costs). It seems like a good deal. But it has to be paid back.

At first the money paid back in year B is far less than the up-front savings from borrowing and deferring.

Eventually, however, so much money is going to the past that the amount available to spend in year B is no more than, and then less than, what WOULD have been available had each year paid for itself. So you have less and less to spend each year despite paying more and more.

That’s where we are at the MTA, and going overall.

Now there is a recession, with related drops in what most people earn that isn’t matched by drops in what transit workers earn, so we’ll have to pay more and accept less to make up the difference. But that can end with the recession, and “doomsday” doesn’t bother me.

The debt and deferred costs from the past are ongoing. That bothers me.

Thats like thanking Ahab for “engaging” with the fucking White Whale.

Larry, given all that, however (which requires an amazing return to sensibility, which no one now seems to be showing), what do you think is currently realistic? Or even likely? You paint a bleak picture, and thanks for engaging in this dialogue

Had not the $30 billion been borrowed, and the pensions been underfunded and enhanced, and with tolls or CP and somewhat higher fares, and were we not being ripped off by contractors, the existing revenues are enough to pay for what we need.

But they are all being sucked away by the past, as I discussed here:

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http://www.r8ny.com/blog/larry_littlefield/the_2008_to_2013_mta_capital_plan_is_there_a_way_out.html

The capital plan needs to be funded by $3 billion, and the feds will pay for some of it. But in a few years payments on past debts will be $2.3 billion. I say dump the debts and the unfunded portion of retiree pensions earned (or taken) in the past.

From existing MTA revenue sources. And the roads and bridges can be funded by existing transportation trust fund revenue sources.

The question is, where is the money going to come from to pay for all that debt and unfunded retirement benefits dumped on us by Generation Greed. And my view is that these can be funded making retirement income taxable, and sticking those who sell and move out with a massive “exit tax” real estate transfer tax. Or the debt service and pensions can not be funded at all. Let the legislature decide. They owe this money, not me or you or my kids.