It's good to hear a Republican say kind words about the NRECA when the organization was part of FDR's New Deal in the 1930's.

They opposed it tooth and nail then, calling it socialized electricity. At every turn, Republicans have opposed it.

It's good to see at least one Republican who's coming around. How refreshing.

Rural electricfication was a good idea and was one of the last times that an economic development idea actually paid for itself. The fact that an idea was good 80 years ago does not mean that it is good now nor does it mean that it cannot be turned into something bad by basic human depravity.

Rural Electrification is highly similar to the depression era gas tax that allowed the construction of farm to market roads. In both cases, urban areas had more electricity or roads because both roads and power were easier to distribute among a compact(and richer) population.

Rural Electricifaction was good for everyone and the commonization of the costs presented no signifigant burden since most of the costs were paid out of the marginal increases in productivity which were also widespread. The construction of the Interstate is another example of building an asset that could be paid for out of the increases in productivity that the infrastructure provided. We are now on the verge of upgrading our Interstate system but the next increment of productivity will not be as large as the original infrastructure provided.

There might come a point however, in any scheme to commonize costs, that the next increment of alleged benefit does not come at a reasonable cost. Commonizing costs does not make a program cost less or cheaper. It does not make the benefits larger. The danger of government programs to commonize costs lies in the definition of need. As soon as needs become rights unmodulated by reason, the system is in danger. Commonizing costs does not repeal basic economic laws.

We are operating our highway system as if there was a perpetual right to live anywhere and to be able to drive anywhere within the same reasonable period of time for decades. Also, we are operating a system of highways that makes it a right to have asphalt even if the first cost in difficult terrain is ten times that on the flat lands. Even though Tennessee populations live mostly in urban environments,the taxes paid into the Highway Fund are still going largely to rural areas. Congestion is an urban phenomenon even though urban areas have the most financial capacity to rid themselves of congestion. The legislature has locked fuel related income transfers from urban to rural areas into the law in such a way that nearly every county is using property and sales taxes on their local road systems now. Toll roads are being proposed for urban areas, not rural areas as a result of the excessive transfer to the rural counties. An income trnsfer that was originally good now has turned into a malignant policy that bureacrats and polititians want you to believe can only be fixed with more money.

Any scheme to commonize costs is risky and has particular risks that vary from scheme to scheme. The convention center fiasco is an example of an attempt to commonize costs that not only attacks our wallets but goes after our property rights.

Income transfer schemes should never be viewed as perpetually good or perpetually bad. Even rural electrification can turn to the dark side as it is used to provide real power to imaginary or unmaterialized industrial developments throughout the 98 acres of empty land in Tennessee waiting for the next factory. The incremental benefit-to-cost ratio can be altered by the slightest policy change or even the failure to change policy.

Even the Clinton Administration, through its OMB Circular 94, recognized that government programs should have a benefit to cost ratio of 1.25 because of the negative effect of taxation on the economy. That is a standard that is still in the Federal law when designing programs by the bureaucracy but widely ignored by city, county and state governments.

Whoops! I should have said 98 square miles not 98 acres. This number moved up three square miles in the last six months.