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I've made my point about paying 10x as much per mile through tolling, so I won't repeat it.

BobL, I find your defeatist attitude towards taxation curiously repulsive. You may roll over and play dead and allow state government to run roughshod over you, but I will openly fight excessive taxation all I can.

Had our founding fathers carried the same attitude, we would still be a subservient colony of Britain.

Living just across the river from Portland, Oregon, what Oregon does also affects me, although I rarely go there. We are currently fighting a phony governess in Washington with the same "tax them to death" attitude. I won't just sit around and accept excessive taxation. I work hard for what I earn and feel I am entitled to keep at least a little of it. Keeping the "you can't fight city hall" attitude just empowers the Liberal Taxinators to move us closer and closer to Socialism. It's not an easy fight, but fight them I will.

"I work hard for what I earn and feel I am entitled to keep at least a little of it. Keeping the "you can't fight city hall" attitude just empowers the Liberal Taxinators to move us closer and closer to Socialism. It's not an easy fight, but fight them I will."

I hear you. I just wish I could focus you guys more on getting the costs of government down, without the sabotage of our freeways being the result. I'd love to see things like paying market rates for highway construction crews, rather than the super-inflated "prevailing wages", and eliminating the phony market for teachers (i.e., requiring them to have an education degree, as if that does a damn bit of good). In fact, I'd just like to see vouchers replace public schools completely. That alone would leave so much money available for roads that government wouldn't know what to do with it.

The only tax you'll ever see me defend on this site (or anywhere) is the gas tax, because I have seen the alternative, and it is UGLY and EXPENSIVE.

"Living just across the river from Portland, Oregon"

One more comment, which you may not appreciate now, but you will later.

We both know that this GPS tolling system is going to be proposed in Washington State, probably sooner rather than later. As angry as you may be about your illegitimate governor raising your gas tax by 9.5 cents per gallon, you guys in Washington, as opposed to Oregon (and Texas), can answer back and say that you've done your share, and this tolling by the mile system is not welcome here in WA. In Oregon, there was no hope - once government decided on GPS tolling, the only alternative was gridlock (same in Texas, in about 2 years).

You see, to get that system implemented, there needs to be a highway "funding crisis". If the people can legitimately claim that there is no funding crisis, then they cannot get that system in place. Hopefully as the vicious effects of this GPS tolling system is seen in other states, you guys will be able to better fight it in Washington. In other words, your gas tax increase has bought you guys some time - hopefully enough.

But make no mistake about it - once you get that GPS tolling system, it will be used for whatever the government wants to use it for, and much, much worse than the gas tax. Furthermore, the government will no longer need to build and expand the highway system, as simply raising the mileage charges will do the same to clear the highways of congestion.

The gas tax is the only tax that I've ever supported, and only because I know what's next when it lapses.