Does the U.S. Really Need a Transportation Department?
Does the U.S. Really Need a Transportation Department?

Author(s): Robert Batemarco
Subject(s): Politics, Governance, Economic policy, Economic development, Transport / Logistics
Published by: Addleton Academic Publishers
Keywords: Walter Block; Department of Transportation; Interstate Highway System; mass transit; cronyism;
Summary/Abstract: How many of the following nineteen people have you ever heard of: Alan S. Boyd, John Volpe, Claude Brinegar, William Thaddeus Coleman Jr., Brock Adams, Neil Goldschmidt, Drew Lewis, Elizabeth Dole, James H. Burnley IV, Samuel K. Skinner, Andrew Card, Federico Peña, Rodney E. Slater, Norman Mineta, Mary E. Peters, Ray LaHood, Anthony Foxx, Elaine Chao, Pete Buttigieg? A far more important question is “how many of them had enough knowledge and understanding of complex transportation systems to make them capable of successfully running the transportation system of the United States?” Because we libertarians understand the importance of market prices and competition in generating successful economic outcomes from the point of view of consumers, our answer to this question is “none of them.” Yet they have all been expected to run such a system by dint of the job they held as U.S. Secretary of Transportation.

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