[Mmmike]

Then you're right, it would be pretty bad news. It's a lot like the old railroad and oil trusts, governments unto themselves that would effectively jack-over and starve out entire towns until they gave up and played ball the way the trust told them to. But then, isn't that what the antitrust laws are supposed to stop?

[BobL]

Yea - leadership would have been explaining to the voters that the gas tax, unlike property taxes and sales taxes have no built-in inflation adjustment. In fact with hybrids coming on line, and other mileage improvements, a stagnant per-gallon gas tax doesn't stand a chance. That's why the state cannot afford to build freeways today. Two options:

1) Increase the gas tax sufficiently - maybe 20 cents per gallon (or about 1 cent per mile for the average driver)

2) Charge a mileage tax - where everyone pays, regardless of what road they drive on (in effect, like a gas tax, but hybrids pay just as much).

To me, #2 is better - in an ideal world. But I don't trust government nearly enough to apply a mileage tax just for roads, and to not take advantage of the data they could collect in implementing the mileage tax (like knowing our driving habits and thus letting their friends know when to break into our houses). Given that Option 1 will still work for the next decade or two (at least), so let's use it.

What is not leadership is just tossing the freeway system into the trash, as our governor is in the process of doing. Then building a system of the most expensive toll roads in the world, and then telling us that he didn't raise our taxes. That's why I despise him.