State Lawmakers looking to quickly pass more taxes

In a March 1 article over at KOMO's web site, State lawmakers (read Democrats) are looking to pass even more regressive transportation taxes to try to fill the budget shortfall. There are two main points I want to make here.

The first is that, from what I have been able to learn, our legislators aren't doing much if anything at all towards making the necessary cuts in the growth of spending first, before they try to come up with new ways to seperate us from more of our hard earned dollars.

Senate Transportation Chair, Mary Margeret Haugen, D-Camano Island said " ... she could support a two-step, 4-cent-per-gallon gas tax increase. The plan could raise $3.5 billion (over a 10 year span - Ed.) toward rebuilding the Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle and financing a new state Route 520 bridge across Lake Washington.

Haugen also said she also likes the idea of indexing the tax so that it slowly grows with inflation. She also likes a gross-weight fee on vehicles, including passenger cars."

While doing something about the disaster waiting to happen, also known as the Viaduct, is a good thing, my question, if this plan gets passed is, when the 10 years are up, will the tax go away? Not likely. I have yet to see local politicians (especially Democrats!) rescind a tax that generates any amount of revenue.

The second point I want to make is this. This kind of a tax is regressive in nature, in that it unfairly burdens those in lower income brackets, because it is not based on their level of income, but on the cost of services or goods. Most people of lower incomes own older cars (if they own a car at all) that are not very fuel-efficient, and as a result, have to go to the gas station more often than people of higher incomes who usually do own fuel-efficient vehicles (and of course, have more 'disposable income'), which in effect, makes those of lower incomes pay more taxes than their more affluent neighbors. This state has such an abundance of regressive taxes that hurt lower income people, it makes me wonder why more people aren't leaving than already are leaving (kind of makes me wonder why I'm still here, too!).

Our legislators need to really take a good long, hard look at the amount of money coming in, and the actual costs of services, and figure out ways to work within their means before they start trying to figure out how to generate more tax revenue, especially regressive forms of revenue generation.