Highway Robbery

The day after I drew this, the California Legislature passed Governor Brown’s $52B transportation bill. As is always the case, the squeakiest wheels managed to get millions for pet projects in their districts while the rest of us will pay for more modest road repairs and upgrades.

No one can honestly say we didn’t need some tax increases to cover the horrendous damage done to our highways and byways after last winter’s record storms, but as politicians like to say; never let a good crisis go to waste. They’ve stacked the deck with pork, and made the new taxes (twelve cents a gallon for gas, twenty for diesel, and a hefty increase in registration fees) inflation adjustable.

In other words, since the costs of transporting goods will be passed on to us peons, inflation will be increased and the taxes right along with them. Fifty-two billion? The figure will be far greater, believe me.

The Governor and termed out legislators who stand to lose nothing are laughing today. As St. Jerry sneered, “They can afford it.”

 

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4 Responses to Highway Robbery

  1. Chris Peterson says:

    CA should do like all the other states, who make the first ten miles of entry into their borders beautiful pavement that really impresses after seeing the sign saying, “Welcome to…(your states’ name here). And seeing signs giving tribute to Eisenhower, all the way east, was an indication of just how long it’s been since we invested in our infrastructure. Not allotting tax expenditures all along to keep things in good condition has left us with no choice but to spend ridiculous amounts now just to maintain it in hodge-podge projects, and mainly near tax-heavy metropolitan corridors. You can’t really complain that the majority of work is done where the majority of people live, but you should complain that we spend far more destroying other peoples’ infrastructure than we do in maintaining our own.

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