Sunday, May 01, 2005

Washington State House passes their portion of gas tax bill

Well, this comes as no real surprise. According to this article, the State House managed to stop their bickering to pass their version of the 9.5 cent per gallon increase in the gasoline tax over the next four years. They say that this will help pay for needed repairs to the Alaskan Way Viaduct, (which is needed, I'll grant) and also for expansion of I-405 on the east side, along with other projects.

All well and good, I suppose, but, my question(s) to the Legislature is this - what have you been doing with the 28 cents per gallon tax on gasoline that we have already been paying for lo these many years? Where has that money been spent, and could that money have been more wisely spent, so as to preclude having to increase it yet again?

This new tax amount will only hurt those who are of lower incomes, as many lower income folks have older, less fuel efficient cars, and can not afford to buy something newer. "Oh, this will 'only' add between $50.00 to $200.00 to the annual cost of buying gasoline. That's not that much." say the Dems. Maybe not to you twits, but that extra $50.00 to $200.00 a year to a lower income household can be a significant amount of money. Money that could have gone to buying more nutritious food for their family, or new clothes, etc.

Why can't the Dems seem to get that? Maybe they'll learn during the election cycle.

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