Brickbat: Burning Bridges

After brush fire destroyed a bridge to his Kinglake, Australia, property in 2009, Anthony McMahon grew tired of waiting for the government to rebuild it. So, with financial help from Rotary and a Catholic agency, he rebuilt it himself. Now, the government is demanding he pay a $170 annual license fee to use the bridge.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
You didn't build that, mate.
^This^
Only in America!
/Yogi Berra
By the way, did anyone else catch this sleeper of a bombshell in the SOTU speech last night? I can't find any comments on it. "Accumulated wealth"!
'And let's close the loopholes that lead to inequality by allowing the top one percent to avoid paying taxes on their accumulated wealth."
The greed and envy lobby has been pushing for a "wealth tax" for as long as I can remember. The inheritance tax is their consolation prize.
i cannot find the reference, but the idea of taxing 529 accounts seems completely stupid.
I just can't wait for them to start coming after 401(k) accounts.
'And let's close the loopholes that lead to inequality by allowing the top one percent to avoid paying taxes on their accumulated wealth."
"Resolved: *No one* shall pay taxes on their accumulated wealth."
Is the creek navigable?
I somehow doubt it.
Depends on whether you have a paddle...
Paddling the school canoe... yep, that's a paddling.
It's Australia. NOTHING IS NAVIGABLE!
Well, it could be navigable...once you clear the deadly fauna and the hazardous flora out of it.
OK...that probably is not feasible.
Well, the government ARE the mob by other means.
They just want their cut.
why doesn't he just deduct the $170 from the cost of the new bridge that they owe him?