In think McDonnell has a point when he argues that, without spending more on transportation, Virginians will be paying even more due to the costs of congestion — the value that travelers place on their time, higher gas bills, more wear and tear on their cars, land use restrictions required by clogged roads, and increased insurance rates due to increased likelihood of accidents.
The needed revenue should have been raised entirely from the users, via the gas tax or tolls. And some of the mass transit spending will not be cost effective. But Virginians could not wait for years for the perfect bill to get passed.
The Democrats knew McDonnell wanted a legacy, and they extracted a high price. But it was also the moderate senate republicans who undercut him.
He wanted to eliminate the gas tax, a bad idea but at least his replacement of a higher sales tax fairly spread the burden across everybody.
But that opened the doors. So in the end, we got a sales tax increase, didn’t get rid of the gas tax. And we got special taxes on people who buy certain types of cars, supposedly because they don’t pay their “fair share” since they use less gas (never mind that a Hybrid Camry uses a lot more gas than a sub-compact Jetta, or that a lot of diesels are in large cars).
Oh, plus we penalize people for living near northern virginia, granting tax authority to unelected regional bodies appointed in a way that allows a majority of people in fairfax to impose taxes on Prince William county residents to build roads in Arlington that the PWC people never use.
And we penalize people for buying new cars — even though replacing old cars is good for the environment AND good for the economy.
And there’s no guarantee that NoVa will get more transportation dollars, or that transportation will get all the new revenue.
A complete mess. That’s why it won a MINORITY of republican votes. This was a DEMOCRAT bill, passed by a Democrat majority and a republican minority.
When you control a supermajority in the house, and have the tie-breaking vote in the senate, and the governorship, you should NEVER have to pass a bill with majority democrat support. That is a complete failure.