The plan the House GOP introduced yesterday to address transportation issues does not solve the long-term problem. Even the GOP admits that (see previous post).<\/p>\n
The major new revenue sources<\/a>, Republicans said, come from diverting about one-third of the state’s taxes on vehicle insurance premiums, ranging from $127 million to $169 million a year, and raising about $100 million annually through imposing bigger fines on bad drivers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Two questions comes to mind: One, what other services will be cut from the general fund if you take up to $169 million out of it?, and two, who has verified that the $100 million estimated to be raised by larger fines are anyway near accurate?<\/p>\n
Clearly, the GOP is on the defensive. Note some of their language in the transportation stories.<\/p>\n
“We applaud<\/a> the governor for getting out of the blocks on some of these things, but the majority of the funds the governor is putting in with that $800 million-plus are in one-time deposits,” Del. Robert F. McDonnell, one of the sponsors of the GOP initiative, said during a news conference outlining the package.<\/p>\n
“Governor Warner<\/a> took a positive step last month. I want to thank the governor for presenting, like the House Republicans, a transportation plan that does not include a gas tax increase or any other general tax increase,” Howell said. “We can work with the governor on transportation issues.”<\/p>\n
[Delegate Terry Kilgore<\/a> (R-Gate City) \u2026 said the governor has proposed pouring a large amount of general fund money into the transportation budget, and he intends to work with other Southwest Virginia legislators to bring a share of that money home for local improvements.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Everybody wants to be seen as doing something for transportation. And even the House GOPers want to be seen as working with governor. Can those who see a certain hypocrisy between wanting to address the funding issue and anti-tax stands reveal the flat-earthers sleights of hand?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The plan the House GOP introduced yesterday to address transportation issues does not solve the long-term problem. Even the GOP admits that (see previous post). The major new revenue sources, Republicans said, come from diverting about one-third of the state’s taxes on vehicle insurance premiums, ranging from $127 million to $169 million a year, and… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}