Posted by Tina
California’s roads and bridges are in need of repair. The governor has decided something needs to be done. He’s right of course, but is his proposal just another means to his big government/big green agenda? Several things are very clear to any Californian with the courage and foresight to notice:
1. California roads and bridges are in need of repair and have been for some time.
2. The taxes we pay to do this work have been used for other purposes for many years. (Squandered in terms of management and adherence to the laws passed by the legislature)
3. Taxes in California, including gas and car registration taxes, are already among the highest in the nation.
4. Electric car owners don’t pay “their fair share” in gas taxes for road repairs.
5. The transportation department, like all state departments, is a bloated inefficient bureaucracy.
6. Green gasoline policies make the price for a gallon of gas much higher than the price in the rest of the country.
7. Increases in registration costs have already been made in recent years for this purpose.
So, do the people of California need to be taxed more or do our leaders need to do a better job of managing our money. We know gasoline funds have been used for other purposes. (Funding of state worker retirement plans. Shortages in welfare or healthcare funds. Big green projects like the train to nowhere. To cover the cost of spending beyond the approved budget.) This is unacceptable. No individual or company would survive if they managed their resources in this manner.
Highlights of the Governors proposal include: $3.6 billion a year for repairs to California’s crumbling transportation infrastructure representing a $65 driver fee, fees charged to polluters (Think polluter police), and bureaucratic reform of Caltrans, an overstaffed department according to an “independent state legislative analyst.”
It appears Governor Brown has not been able to secure the votes needed to pass legislation based on his proposals. Republicans ans Democrats were not anxious to sign on. Is it because it’s an election year? Are they clever enough to know that in this economy higher gas taxes will just mean that California’s car owners will respond by driving less and using less fuel? Who knows! If they follow their usual pattern, legislation to raise fuel related taxes and fees will happen at some point in the near future.
Chris McKenzie, executive director of the League of California Cities, was right when making the case for California cities, “It is well past time for the Legislature to act,” but strikes the wrong pose, IMHO, when he stated, “The conditions are getting so bad that if Californians don’t commit to prioritizing funding to fix them, we will be facing the failure of a large portion of our bridges, streets and road.”
News flash…it isn’t the people of California that need to commit to prioritizing funding; it is the legislature and the Governor who need to prioritize funding and use our tax dollars efficiently and as originally intended. The public should only support new taxes and fees when our leaders demonstrate they can manage taxpayer dollars well and use funds for the purpose for which they they were allocated.
Sen. Bob Huff, R-San Dimas apparently agrees, at least in part. He proposed a transportation financing package earlier this year that would end the practice of diverting taxes meant for road repairs to other uses.
They say gas taxes haven’t been increased in 20 years. But other fees have been. Bay Area bridge tolls and registration fees have increased. Our gas taxes go up or down now “based on state projections.” The Governors proposal would create “a fixed rate based on a 5-year average then add index increases to the consumer price index.” What do you want to bet that the “five year average” would always be higher than the last? An 11-cent-per-gallon increase on diesel fuel was also proposed. Just what Californians need, another hidden tax on the goods we all buy.
Governments at all levels always get bigger and taxes always increase while our roads fall apart and problems never seem to be solved. Is there any question that our leaders serve only to increase the size of government and feed their own interests? Demand for smaller, more efficient government is the answer but we need the agreement, nay the outrage, of an informed populace to realize this goal. This is one of the reasons we at Post Scripts keep this blog alive and why we, and you our fine contributors, take the risk to communicate what we’ve discovered to friends, relatives and strangers.
I’m happy that the Governors proposal failed to garner enough votes for now. I don’t kid myself that it means an end to the state governments intention to raise our “road and bridge” taxes. The larger problem, however, requires a difficult, long term effort from all of us. Your contribution, right within your own immediate circle, is vital. Continue to plant seeds of freedom and the values spelled out in the Constitution. And remember, Rome really wasn’t built in a day and if fell, in part, because of greedy, inefficient, elitist leadership: “An exhausted global empire was so plagued by financial corruption, a bankrupt elite, and rural depopulation that few citizens joined the army. Fewer still knew what fifth-century Rome stood for, much less whether it was any longer worth defending.”
Soldier on!
Perhaps Moonbeam should take some of that $$ promised to the unions for the bullet train and use it for roads. Would get more actual use and not turn into a boondoggle (oops, it already has!) like the Big Dig did in Boston.
It’s not known as Taxifornia without reason . . . . . .
I can’t stand the gall of these guys coming to taxpayers again and again for the same purpose. Like small children liberals prefer toys and play more than keeping the space neat and tidy first like a mature adult would. And they always have their greedy little hands out wanting more. Disgusting!
Off topic: Saturday funny.
Just Why Did The Chicken Cross Road?
DONALD TRUMP: All Mexican chickens who wish to cross this road must submit to a complete background check, and full body search.
BARACK OBAMA: Let me be perfectly clear, if the chickens like their eggs they can keep their eggs. No chicken will be required to cross the road to surrender her eggs. Period.
JOHN McCain: My friends, the chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road.
HILLARY CLINTON: What difference at this point does it make why the chicken crossed the road?
DICK CHENEY: Where’s my gun?
COLIN POWELL: Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road.
BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with that chicken.
AL GORE: I invented the chicken.
JOHN KERRY: Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it. It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken’s intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.
AL SHARPTON: Why are all the chickens white?
DR. PHIL: The problem we have here is that this chicken won’t realize that he must first deal with the problem on this side of the road before it goes after the problem on the other side of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he is acting by not taking on his current problems before adding any new problems.
OPRAH: Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross the road so badly. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I’m going to give this chicken a NEW CAR so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.
ANDERSON COOPER: We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.
NANCY GRACE: That chicken crossed the road because he’s guilty! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.
MARTHA STEWART: No one called me to warn me which way the chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer’s Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.
DR. SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I’ve not been told.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die in the rain, alone.
JERRY FALWELL: Because the chicken was gay! Can’t you people see the plain truth? That’s why they call it the ‘other side.’ Yes, my friends, that chicken was gay. If you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the Liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases. like ‘the other side’ It’s as plain and as simple as that.
GRANDPA: In my day we didn’t ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough for us
BARBARA WALTERS: Isn’t that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heartwarming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its lifelong dream of crossing the road.
ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.
JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.
BILL GATES: I have just released e-Chicken 2015, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents and balance your checkbook. Internet Explorer is an integral part of e-Chicken 2015. This new platform is much more stable and will never reboot.
ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?
COLONEL SANDERS: Did I miss one??
Re Peggy : Funniest thing I have ever read in Post Scripts. I needed that. Thanks!
Peggy, I am totally offended by the part where…
Just kidding. That was hilarious, and should be a whole article.
When you factor in the AB32 carbon tax Colliefornia (as Ahnode Gropenator calls it) already has the highest gas taxes in the country. It went into effect on gas this year and is costing us about 10 cents a gallon and it will go up automatically EVERY year.
And remember Ahnode signed AB32 into law. And he was against Dan Logue’s attempt to postpone it. And to this day Ahnode lives in mansions, has a fleet of gas guzzlers and flies the world in private jets to lecture us peasants about reducing our “carbon footprint.” I didn’t vote for Ahnode. After Davis was recalled I voted for McClintock. I knew Arnie is a power hungry, bum RINO.
And the DemoNRats want to increase the gas tax another 12 cents this year and increase the vehicle registration tax.
Colliefornia also has the nation’s worst roads. Highest gas taxes and worst roads! Anyone who thinks that these criminal b@stards will use the additional money they steal from us to fix the roads is an idiot or a brainwashed sheep (like Chris).
But this is just the beginning. They want the little people to feel pain when they have to buy gas. Darrell Stinkbug even said so earlier this year.
They are going to pass SB350 and Brown will sign it. If you think things are bad now just wait until its impact is felt.
If the Demonrats get their way we will be paying 5 or 6 dollars a gallon more than the rest of the country. But even that is not enough. They want us living in Doe Mill style housing, crammed together like sardines with no cars and being completely reliant on crappy public transit.
What they are doing with energy in this state will cripple the economy. And they will wage war on property rights to get as many people as possible into Doe Mill style housing.
They are liars and thieves and tyrants and our only hope in Northern California is to form the state of Jefferson.
You go Guy!
Very nicely said. When this incredible tyranny hits the people’s wallets and lives full on there will be a mass angry protest, a mass exit, or something much darker.
2022 is just around the corner. Either we fight or we’ll be surrounded by brain dead greenie dweebs in our Doe Mill housing and turned into soylant green.
They want us living in Doe Mill style housing, crammed together like sardines with no cars and being completely reliant on crappy public transit.
Of course these criminal jack booted tyrant Demonrats will be driving around in their limos while you will have to take the bus.
Calif. has already fallen into a six foot deep pit. The next UC graduates will be filling it in. You’re not going to believe what’s taking classes at Irvine now.
A College Student Tried to Ban the American Flag. Here’s How He Answered a Few ‘Gotcha Questions.’:
http://www.ijreview.com/2015/09/412969-hilarious-video-political-satirist-schools-matthew-guevara-student-tried-ban-american-flag/?author=fc&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=owned&utm_campaign=culture&utm_term=ijamerica&utm_content=culture