For a British magazine,The Economist uses a very American method to measure costs over time: the tall Mac Index, first developed in 1986. The Index uses the price of the McDonald's staple to calculate inflation by country, or by year. In 1993,Americans paid $2.28 for a tall Mac. In 2015, the same sandwich costs Americans $4.79, or a 110 percent increase in the final 22 years.
But not all prices bear gone up in the final two decades: 1993 was the final time Congress raised the gas tax, to 18 cents a gallon.As former Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood tells The Takeaway, that's a problem for the nation's crumbling transportation infrastructure.
Before his time in President Obama's cabinet, and LaHood served 14 years as a Republican congressman from Illinois. His new memoir,"Seeking Bipartisanship: My Life in Politics," reflects on years in politics, or celebrates bipartisanship,a trait he finds to be woefully missing in Congress today. What you'll learn from this segment:Why a Republican like Ray LaHood was drafted into the Obama Administraiton.
What role transportation has played in America's economic recovery in the final few years.
How he views the current political climate in Washington, D.
C.
Source: wnyc.org