Virginia's Governor has floated a new plan for one of the state's perennial problems -- funding for an inadequate transportatin network. In his last year as governor, Robert McDonnell has proposed to do away completely with our state tax on gasoline; to increase car registration fees; to charge a special tax of $100 on alternative-fuel vehicles; and oh-by-the-way to increase the state sales tax from 5% to 5.8% (that's 16% increase) and then use general revenue (not limited to just that .8% increase) to fund roads.
If this all sounds rather regressive, it is. Its overall effect is to reward greater gas consumption. Those who drive huge gas-guzzlers (their privilege, certainly) would thus be subsidized by those who do not. The seemingly obvious link between more driving and greater contribution to road-building would be obliterated. And, while it may be time, after several years, to stop rewarding people tax-wise for making a decision (buying a hybrid or electric) that has built-in benefits for them anyway, it hardly makes sense to penalize them for it. Meanwhile -- even granting that all citizens have an interest in good transporation just as they do in good health and education -- everyone would get to pay more on every transaction (except transient gas-buyers passing through from other states) while money going to health and education could actually decline.
McDonnell can be given credit -- and has been by analysts and politicians alike -- for a novel approch to come up with new funding. It can't be called "out of the box," though, because McDonnell, like so many other Republican politicians, has chosen to place himself in a "no-tax" box with Grover Norquist. I resent such politicians for being so dismissive of their constituents as to pledge themselves to an inflexible position dictated by an unelected idiot; and I disdain them for being so stupid as to restrict their own independence and flexibility by doing so.
If McDonnell really wants to resolve Virginia's roads crisis, he should start by increasing our gas tax (currently one of the lowest in the nation). Then we could see about increases in the sales tax.
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