New Car tax... Motorcycles too
If we don't tell our reps~ what we think about this and to knock it off or we will send them to their rooms. We could be looking at a tax hike in the middle of a recession.
A letter from Greg Brophy.
The Car Tax
What you saw at the Capitol these past couple weeks was a classic example of concentrated versus diffused interests.
Mike Rosen gives examples of this all the time on his show, and speaking of Mike, he should have taken his own advice and stuck with Greenburg and Associates; then no one would have made off with his money.
The concentrated interests are the contractors and business communities that benefit from state expenditures on roads. The diffused interests are the regular tax payers who foot the bill for this fee (tax) increase.
The tax increase amounts to a quarter of a billion dollars a year, so you can see why the contractors are interested. It means $41 to you for each regular sized car and $51 for a pickup or bigger SUV.
It’s probably not worth your coming to the Capitol to complain about $82 in registration fee increases a year (two cars), but for sure the road construction guys are interested in their share of an extra quarter billion dollars. Diffused (tax payers) versus concentrated (tax receivers).
The bill also allows for tolling of existing roads just to raise revenue. We took that part out on Wednesday morning and after the four Democrats who sided with the 14 Republicans had their arms twisted all through lunch, they voted to put it back in during the afternoon session.
We also took out of the bill the provision that would allow the state to tax you for every mile driven by putting a GPS transponder in your car. I expect them to try to put that provision back in during discussion in the House.
For sure, we need to spend more money on roads. I’ve offered many ideas to do just that, such as the Plus One idea from last year, which gradually put transportation funding into the general budget and built the amount up to a billion a year additional spending over ten years. It would work if given a try.
Remember, we didn’t get to this overall road condition overnight and we won’t solve the problem for ever overnight.
And, I think it is really important to note that only a fool would raise taxes during a recession.
We also need to come up with a fair way to pay for roads in the future.
One of these days, people may be driving fully electric cars. They won’t pay much in fuel taxes will they? Heck, I drive a Prius, so I don’t pay nearly as much as I used to pay. During the period of $4 gas, I left my pickup parked as much as possible. We’ll see that again, I’m afraid.
I’d trade the gas tax for something else.
Bob Beauprez suggested a sales tax on all items as a trade for the gas tax. It would work.
I have been thinking about an annual stamp on a driver’s license; kind of like my elk hunting stamp on my conservation certificate. Get away from the car, after all, a lot of people, especially farmers own lots of cars, and concentrate on the individual driver. You can only drive one vehicle at a time; seems fairer to me than this increase on all car registrations.
Then the question comes up, when to collect it? Happy Birthday, you owe the state $150 for your road stamp! Maybe the fourth Monday in October would work, that way if the stamp costs too much, the voters would revolt.
I am a rural guy, and I always will be. Any idea that I support will not harm my neighbors.
I’ve been blogging at www.SenatorBrophy.blogspot.com you can get shorter and more timely stuff there.
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