Gas Taxes Going Up to Pay for Transportation? Hell Freezing Over?

For instance, the Washington Post writes that "[a] bipartisan group of senior state senators intends to offer legislation this week that would rely on a sales tax on gasoline to finance billions of dollars for road construction and maintenance..."  Reportedly, "motorists would pay a 5 percent sales tax in addition to Virginia's gas tax of 17.5 cents per gallon," earning "n extra $1.25 for every $25 in gasoline and would raise about $600 million every year" for transportation improvements.

Reaction to this plan runs the gamut, along largely predictable lines:
*Sen. Kenneth Stolle (R-Virginia Beach) says:

It's counterproductive and idiotic. It's the same as doing nothing. As sure as I'm standing here today, that bill will be dead on arrival in the House.

*Sen. Richard Saslaw (D-Fairfax) says:

They want to take the money from the schools, the state police and higher ed to pay for it, all to avoid charging anyone from out of state. They want to live with that; that's fine. But that's not a solution.

Saslaw adds that "40 percent of Virginia's interstate traffic is made up of people who do not live in the state," and therefore that a sales tax on gasoline would "allow the state to get money from out-of-state motorists and truckers who drive on the roads but do not pay local or state taxes."

Sounds pretty smart (and clever) to me.  What are Dick Cranwell and I missing here?

Meanwhile, the President of the Virginia Education Association, Princess Moss, is quoted in the Roanoke Times as follows:

If we can't do right by education now, how can we expect to do right when the traditional funding source for our schools is eroded to pave our roads?

Virginia is the seventh wealthiest state in the nation. Our taxes rank 41st. Raising our gas tax to the rate levied by our neighbors to the north or south would provide a better answer, as would removing the sales tax exemption from gasoline. There is a way to build highways without railroading our schools.

Again, I couldn't agree more.  Raiding the general fund - education, public safety, health care, etc. - to pay for transportation makes absolutely no sense, and in fact is morally wrong.  You'd think that moralistic Republicans might see that, but nooooo.  Apparently, it takes a Democrat to get the simple, Econ. 101 concept that those who use a service (in this case transportation) should pay for that service.  Duh.

Finally, the blog "Albo Must Go" which lambastes the transportation "strategy" of Del. Dave "Planet" Albo (R-Mars) for providing just "9.2% of what's projected to be NEEDED" for transportation in coming years, and also for "fund[ing] projects partly by stealing money from the General Fund." 

That, my friends, is the Republican Way.  In contrast, the Democratic (and Reasonable Republican) Way is to responsibly raise the revenues needed to make needed investments for our rapidly growing state.  If not, we may kill the goose that lays the golden egg in Fairfax County and elsewhere in Virginia.  Maybe the Dave Albos and Kenneth Stolles of the world don't give a damn, but the rest of us do.  Maybe we should replace the Dave Albos and Kenneth Stolles of the world with representatives who think more like the rest of us?

Comments