Thursday, March 30, 2006 6:35 PM
Talking About PoliticsJanuary 10, 2006
The Real Gas Tax Scandal
Filed under: General — Gary Pearce @ 12:38 pm
Republicans want to make an issue out of the recent state gas tax increase. They’re shocked – shocked, mind you – at a 2.8 cent tax hike. But they’re unbothered that the oil companies raised the price 15 cents.
They’re missing the real problem here.
I agree with an opinion piece that ran in the Charlotte Observer:
Is it outrageous to have the sixth highest gas tax if you have to maintain the second largest network of roads in the country? North Carolina maintains more than 78,000 miles of roadway, second to Texas.
Here’s something drivers really should be annoyed about. Not all of the gas taxes you’re paying go to roads. The state regularly takes millions in gas taxes for the general fund, diverting them from highway needs to help balance the budget….
Meanwhile, Raleigh is begging the state to build the rest of its I-540 loop as a toll road. Otherwise it won’t be finished until after 2030.
I also like what Joseph Freddoso, chairman of the Regional Transportation Alliance, wrote in The N&O:
There’s no doubt North Carolinians have endured their share of pain at the pump. However, we must face the reality that saving three cents on a gallon of gas now isn’t worth adding to a $3 billion underinvestment in mobility. If there is a call for a special session of the legislature, let it be on an issue that can make a true difference in both the short- and long-term: preserving transportation taxes solely for transportation and mobility improvements. Don’t suspend the gas tax increase — end the diversions of the public’s transportation tax and fee investments.
3 Comments »
As gas keeps going up in price, we need stepped up investment in Capital Area Transit, hybrid buses like Charlotte and Austin, buses coming by every 15 minutes, etc.
Comment by Louie — January 11, 2006 @ 7:11 am
When I lived in Chile, I took the bus or subway all over the capital, Santiago. It was extremly cheap, realatively clean, reasonably fast, and fairly comfortable. But the most remarkable thing about it was that these qualities were generated and maintained not by government dictate, but by the genteel nature of the Chilean people. Chileans tended to behave very well on the subway (they were quite proud of it), kept it clean, and were unfailingly polite to other riders. I remember thinking about what subways here in the U.S. look (and feel) like, and the thought was disheartening.
I believe that one of the reasons public transportation doesn’t work in the U.S. is that our culture has no sense of behavioral restraint. Our public places tend to be dominated by (and the atmosphere dictated by) the loudest, the crudest, the dirtiest, and the most dangerous-looking. Our tendency to gravitate towards private vehicles is a rational response to an increasingly polluted (morally and culturally, as well as physically) public sphere. As long as the average American can afford a private vehicle, I don’t think public transportation has much of a chance.
Comment by Jim Stegall — January 11, 2006 @ 4:16 pm
The gas taxes in the US are alleged to be providing the necessary construction and repairs to our hiways??? Hah…Congress funnels this money to their othe spending issues.
Most people think that our “alleged personal income taxes provide education and hiway maintanence? Ha Ha
School and Hiway taxes are allocated from the Alcohol state taxes and tags………may sound strange but most contractors pay incomprehensable fees for tags and road taxes for the vechicles that they use everyday.
We must first start questioning the excess and diverse spending of these taxes in our local, then state, and then Federal arenas. Most of our alleged personal income taxes goes to feed the European bankster who created the {private corporation[ known as the Fed Reserve System…….the worst Pox that was ever implemented against the public of our Americas.
We must first control the taxes and spenditures in our local government and then start to question the frivolous spending in DC…..the politicians cannot question the Fed Res Sys because they use them to fund their “dream ideas” with no questions, while the Feds are stealing every dime our daily labors.
Comment by jim bethea — January 13, 2006 @ 10:08 pm
]