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Originally Posted by ApostateAbe
You are understanding me backward. I said, "People in urban areas must pay a higher price for home rent and ownership." And my point in saying that was that people living in rural areas should bear what is now the public costs of living in rural areas, just as people living in urban areas have to pay a higher rent.
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Sorry, I read rural instead of urban. That's the first time I've ever made a mistake in my life, I just don't understand how that could've happened.
By damn, them rural folk ought to pay for living out in the sticks. As if most of them are living there by choice. If rural folk had to pay the actual cost of getting roads, electricity and telephone service to their homesteads, a lot of them still wouldn't have those things we now consider essential services. We'd have a hell of a lot more third-world barefoot hillbillies farming via the old inefficient methods. Plus, transporting their products would take a lot longer and not at all during the rainy season because of the unsubsidized rural highway system that would't exist if people like you had their way. You'd pay more for everything if not for these subsidies. Subsidies like these ARE in the best interests of everyone.
The postal service, or rural electricification, never was about anything more than serving business interests or the government's ability to communicate with it's citizenry, which some would deem essential in a democratic republic, whether for election purposes, taxation, or to raise an army. Granted, it the postal service was more important in Ben Franklin's day than it is with today's technology, but just having the service available still is a necessary thing, and a real bargain at less than $4 per capita subsidy. I'd bet businesses are subsidized more by the postal rates not meeting actual costs than individuals are. And, isn't that what government is for, serving business interests? Sure seems to be.