Raise the gas tax? Readers say: Are you crazy?
And:I think what you have here is called a conundrum. Our legislators have preached to us for years about conserving gas. Now, with the demand on gas finally dropping in recent months, the state tax revenue is lacking, thus causing a problem for funding road maintenance and other related expenditures. The demand for gas has decreased because the price at the pump was high. The result was that people are conserving, just like the government has asked.
So, now that the price has come down and people are realizing that they CAN conserve, you would propose raising the price of gas by another ten cents per gallon. We did what the government wanted.....conserved...but now you would have us pay the price for conservation with higher taxes. Excuse me? Did I miss something here?
On the one hand, you comment "Ten cents a gallon would cost drivers only about $5 per month...". But then to further confuse us, your article states that "Environmentalists like a gas tax because it discourages driving and pollution." So, if the $5 per month is insignificant, why would those environmentalists believe if would discourage driving further? I am confused. So, let's assume that our state heeds your advice and raises our gas tax.
If the environmentalists are right and driving decreases with a ten cent increase, demand would go down. But with demand down, revenues would again suffer so we would need to raise the tax again. But then the demand would go down because we raised the gas tax. So we would have to raise the gas tax again because the demand is down which further discourages driving and demand, so we would have to raise the gas tax again. Lets' see now, with less need to drive, we wouldn't need our cars and surely wouldn't need new ones.....UMMMM
And:First the article about more immigrants now raise the gas tax. The biggest problem I see is that the garbage in Annapolis and Washington can not spend our tax money wisely. How many times has state administrations taken money out of the transportation fund to balance the general fund? No matter how much money is raised they will steal it for unimportant agendas.
You start comparing our tax to Europe, just compare it to Arizona. If the gas tax is raised then that money should only be used for roads and bridges. Lets put a 50% tax on the mass transit system that comes no where close to covering its expenses. Then lets take 50% of the salaries away from the do nothing Porcari and J.White, White left the port then came back and got a fifty thousand dollar raise , what changed but his bank account.
Porcari came from that bloated overpaid revolving door Uof M system, what a deal for us taxpayers. I am sick and tired of them telling me how important they are, if they are taht special they should be making magic things happen.Before I go would you find out who pays that other do nothing overpaid slob Donald Fry.
And:Even O'Malley, as you state, has more sense than you to even consider such a move of an increase. But then newspaper people who are not really stating news but non factual opinions say things for which they have no basis. Your first comment is really sound in that you indicate that raising the tax by only a dime makes us only a penny more than Pennsylvania. That's always a good argument for doing something..... stating that we are only this less than or more than that.
Great point! I know that convinces me of your sound argument. Then your second sound point is that it will only cost about $5.00 a month for getting the state a head start in beating foreign oil habit. Great insight. I'm sure that our foreign oil suppliers will sit back and accept a lesser income because of the decline in gas usage and not cut supply so that the cost will rise on its purchase. But you're right, the gas tax won't adjust because of that (it will stay at 10 cents) it will be the suppliers fault for punishing us for cutting usage. But, I do see your point in that it will cut dependence on foreign oil. Do you think if we raise it to 15 cents we can cut them out completely. Yeah, right. Good thinking.
Oh, then you use the great line of how the party in office, this time Democrats, will spend the money wisely. Wow! I bet you have plenty of great examples of that. How 'bout the earmarks on a "stimulus" package. I wonder who they're stimulating...certainly not their constituents at home. No? Of course the "Democratic senator who happened to stick in a few million for his son's project as an earmark, stimulates me and our economy. Great example don't you think? It certainly swayed me in having more "blind" faith. It's great in this country that anybody can say what they want or think as a right. Feels good. You must be exhilarated each day being able to do that. Good job.
And:When are you people at "The Sun" going to stop injecting personal opinion in the news? I read for months the bias and cheerleading showing up everywhere in the paper during the campaign and now it shows up in whats left of the business page. I thought your paper already had an opinion page.
Oh, you found selective quotes to support your case, but the bottom line is that this time the last thing we need is another tax. EZ Pass just raised its fees. Wasn't that enough? By the way according to how you liberals called it when the last admimistration did it, it was a tax. I'm sure if you sent the state a check the O'Malley clan would cash it. But for this ordinary citizen, no thanks.
In case you don't remember the year old tax hike (largest in the history of the state of Maryland) hasn't done anthing but drive some hard woking people out of the state. Of course you really played your hand when you said " Maryland needs to think bigger." Liberals always hide who they are, but that sentence says it all about you. In closing, I guess it doesn't matter to you because from what I understand in the last week is that Democrats don't feel the need to pay taxes!
Dear Mr. Hancock: Your recommendation to increase the State’s gas tax by a dime underscores the importance of creating a constitutional firewall to protect the Transportation Trust Fund (“Maryland could lead the way by raising its gas tax,” Feb 4).
There is no denying the need to “build a 21st-century transportation system,” but, unfortunately, more than $1 billion has been transferred from the fund over the past two decades into the general fund to balance the state budget. Millions of dollars have yet to be repaid. While emergency transfers to balance the budget have a rational underpinning, it is imperative that transferred money be replenished within a set time frame, to honor a promise to the taxpayers.
This was a key recommendation of the 1999 Hellman Commission on Transportation Investment. The fund is called the Transportation Trust Fund because motorists trust their government to spend gas tax revenue collected at the pump on transportation improvements. Legislation has been introduced in recent years to provide a constitutional firewall that would require the repayment of Transportation Trust Fund dollars that were transferred to the general fund. This constitutional protection exists in a number of states and is sound public policy. Any discussion or initiative to increase gas taxes must be preceded by the creation of a foundation of trust on transportation policy.
JOHN R. LEOPOLD
County Executive
Annapolis, MD
Comments
We need a gas tax increase, and the money should go to MTA (as soon as they sort the missing farebox money thing). Drivers are not paying for the environmental damage and pollution they cause, let alone all the damage their vehicles do to the roads. MTA ridership is up but buses on the roads are down.
I do not understand people who think that the government always misspends money. Sometimes they do, but other times, having a government do something is the equivalent of buying the family size - it costs less per unit. Look at the cost of public libraries versus what it'd cost someone to buy all the materials and databases they used, for example.
Posted by: Lissa | February 4, 2009 10:40 AM