How much will this cost us?

naturist wrote:
Nobody I know LIKES paying taxes. Wait, check that: nobody I know LIKES paying for ANYTHING. But if you want the goods, you have to pay for them. That's just how it is.

And I for one want the roads, so I'll grit my teeth and pay my share of maintaining them. Personally, I'd rather they just increased the fuel tax, rather than make toll roads. But every time a legislator proposes doing that, the screaming gets deafening and the anti-tax nuts come out of the woodwork.

I know we've cut our fuel purchases from the days the main ride got 16-20 mpg and the current one gets 50. This suggests that we should be in line for something like a tripling of our gas tax rates just to get us back to par supporting those roads we use so much. In our state the gas tax is set as a percentage, rather than a cents/per gallon, and it currently is 3.2%. I can't imagine an immediate jump to 9% making it through the Republican-dominated legislature, can you?

So, yeah, if the number of toll roads increases, I am not going to like it. But ya gotta do what ya gotta do, and that applies to gub'mint as much as to you and I. And I note that OVERALL, TAXES ARE AT A 70 YEAR LOW in the US.

Naturalist has several points, but some of what he knows is just Wrong.

He is only partly correct that if you what the product or service, you have to pay for it. Many in this country don't. They are now wards of the state and their needs (wants and desires) are funded by the tax payers. (My son, his wife and all their children now are in this class.)

He stated (without reference) that "OVERALL, TAXES ARE AT A 70 YEAR LOW in the US." There is a book he should read called "How to Lie with Statistics (ISBN 0-393-31072-8)". The taxes collected are low because the countries economy is so far in the tank and so much less is being earned by wage earners and corporation, that taxes paid has also dropped (IHS.com). The actual fact is that tax rates have gone up and are soon to go up again. But, as usual, when the tax rates and fuel costs go up, the people paying those taxes do their best to avoid paying them as taxes usually do nothing of benefit for the payer.

There is still an US Excise tax on high load tires. That needs to be extended to "Low Rolling Resistance" tires used on hybrid vehicles to get the CAFE up. Other than that, the proposed taxes both new and increased will probably force an end our RVing in late 2016. I'm not happy about that, but those are the new laws.

Matt