I disagree.  Fruit of the poisonous tree.  We have to be protected from the police using illegal tactics to arrest people.  If they gain evidence of a crime illegally, that evidence should always be thrown out and the police reprimanded.  This is a nation of laws, for the people and by the people. We have to watch the watchmen.  

The sad thing is I'd almost welcome this if it was used exclusively for additional investment in infrastructure. The thing that used to fund it, the gasoline tax, hasn't risen in decades and his being reduced to nothing by inflation and better gas mileage. It really needs to rise to what it was in the nineties in real terms, with an automatic adjustment for inflation and perhaps even gas mileage, but of course that is just to politically toxic to ever be a possibility. Hence silly alternatives like this being proposed, which are both more expensive to implement and are far easier for the government to abuse. The dark side of democracy I suppose.

People have been telling you this crap for a long time, but that doesn't make it anything other than crap.

If I'm a cop, and I beat the living shit out of you to get a confession, the confession is no good.  You were under duress.  If I ask you if you did it, and you just say yes, whether I gave you a Miranda warning or not should mean diddly.  In either case, it is ME that fucked up, not society.  I should be punished for my transgression.  If the evidence isn't in question, fuck the poisonous tree.

Lawyers, in an unending effort to fuck people over at their own profit, have conned the entire world into a morass of legalese and utter stupidity just so you absolutely have to have one just to scratch your own ass.  They make shit up out of thin air, a judge buys their line of bullshit, and poof, you have another rule of evidence that never existed before then.  Fruit of the poisonous tree is just one such piece of horse shit to come out of the legal system in what was then a desperate attempt to get a client off over something more akin to a clerical error than a miscarriage of justice.

It would help if they actually spent it on roads, instead of public transportation.

It's too darned intrusive.  They can sugar-coat it any way they want.  From a purely practical standpoint, he government has enough trouble processing the intelligence they're already getting, I see no benefit to allowing them to track everybody everywhere.

If I wanted to live someplace with the government living in my rectum, I'd move there.

Doesn't matter where you live in this day and age, Government IS in your rectum, given ALL the laws they create to rule, rather than govern.

As for the GPS in there, I just hope a dose of strong laxatives 'll shift it.... cos a surgical removal is gonna cost some.

And with those satellites that can see a bottle cap on your kitchen table from 10,000 miles in space, I make sure all my curtains are drawn tightly, so's government can't see whether my fave soda is Coke or Pepsi.

Has to do with wire tap law... essentially, that is what the GPS is, according to SCOUSA, as it is an electronic device revealing info about you. Having a police officer watching you while you are in the public domain, is not. Seems a rather large difference to me, at least. There are rules governing that as well. Don't be hasty in losing what little privacy you do have.... and make damned good and sure the Fourth Amendment isn't lost in the shuffle.

They're both pathetically low, and in many metro areas better public transportation is seriously needed in places where there is no longer room to expand roads. The lack of both will start to be a drain on the economy eventually, even without more bridges collapsing on themselves.

The recession is starting to change this, as states no longer have the money to keep all of their inmates. California I think it was has already started releasing minor criminals early, and some hard hit cities and counties are no longer sending people to jail for certain crimes (just fines and goes on their record). Whether it will lead to a wider realization of the dark side of being "hard on crime" remains to be seen.

One thing that makes me not feel so bad about the guy getting off on illegally-introduced evidence is, our more libertarian types in the USA don't even think drugs should be illegal in the first place.   Granted, I'm not one of those people (this is probably the one area where I diverge from the libertarian camp), and drug legalization tends to apply more toward marijuana--not cocaine.   This case was cocaine.  But still...a criminal going free on charges that we are somewhat ambivalent on being illegal in the first place, that doesn't make me sick to my stomach.   Definitely not so much as the government implanting chip implants in our colons so that they know when we'll have our next bowel movements before we do.

Spending tax dollars on what should and is a private venture in many cases is just an excuse to practice socialism.  Subsidized transportation is another means for wealth redistribution, not something the federal government has any authority to do.  It typically ends up costing more and being less useful than private sector competition as well.

Now, if the asshole of a state you're cursed to live in wants to get buses that run off cow shit and solar powered L trains, more power to them.  Nothing in the Constitution says they can't be retarded if they want to be, but it's got no business being paid for by the federal gasoline tax.

I like Jafo's idea 

I hear people constantly complain about gas price and find it rather funny that they do it with a 500ml bottle of water they payed 2 bucks for.

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

Common Good isn't in there.  the general Welfare of the United States is referring to the entity, not the population.  Common applies to defense only.  Wealth redistribution isn't in there, and was explicitly warned against by the people that wrote this, so don't bother regurgitating the half baked bullshit argument liberals always throw up at the first sign of someone being capable of basic reading comprehension.

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

Here we have the idiocy used to justify the interstate highway system.  Regulate does not mean what they claim it does, banning shit left and right as they micromanage the economy into the ground.  Historical documents must be defined by the period, not current shenanigans to make things say something other than what they did.  Regulate means to make regular.  Congress has the power to make certain that interstate commerce remains open and fair.  They're supposed to stomp on states that impose tariffs, and other forms of idiocy to gain a competitive edge over their neighbors, such as requiring in state drivers.  It's a crap argument, this doesn't even justify the interstate highway system.  To the effect of this argument though, it's bloody wonderful.  Your local putz city bus system has fuck all to do with interstate commerce, thus it's not covered in any way and cannot be promoted or restricted in any form by the federal government

I said the interstate highways aren't really justified by the commerce clause, but they are justified.  Interstate highways are necessary for the transport of mail.  Airports are necessary for the transport of mail.  At the time the rail system was being built, rail was used for mail.  Problem solved.  Our government isn't bright enough to figure that out though, so they came up with a convoluted explanation for the above instead of using this:

To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

That's not to say no one can legally run public transportation in the USA.  There is no explicit restriction on expenditures for public transportation written into our set of rights.  As such, municipalities and state governments are all quite free to play with their own localities barring restrictions in their state constitutions, or local ordinances.  It just isn't constitutional for it to be federally funded.

For someone who spends so much time arguing for copyright laws to be followed, your dismissal of the Constitution is comedic.  It has an amendment process for a reason.  I'll ignore your unrealized communist sympathies, as ignorance is rampant and incurable these days.  The shit will hit the fan and it will have nothing to do with petroleum.  Peak oil is an old joke the world doesn't get no matter how many times it comes around.

Pot holes are created not by driving, but by weather.  Outlaw cars entirely and have everyone on buses, you'll still replace them just as often.

So... No, it isn't.